


All I Want for Christmas is You

by ilovelegendsalot



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Christmas, Friendship, Gen, Insecure Lloyd, Kai is a good older brother, Lloyd had a terrible childhood, Ninjago Christmas, People seem to forget that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovelegendsalot/pseuds/ilovelegendsalot
Summary: It's Lloyd's first Christmas with the Ninja.  It's also his first Christmas with his parents.  Really it's his first Christmas ever.  He just doesn't want the others to find that out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love the Ninjago series. It's one of my favorite shows, but when I went to look for fanfiction, most of what I found was really weird ships. So, I decided to write some of my own. There will never be any weird ships in my works. Anything between the ninja will be purely platonic/brotherly love (excluding Jay and Nya, of course). I have a lot of ideas and I'm excited to share them. This particular work is set after season 2(Return of the Golden Master) and before season 3(Rebooted). Nobody's 100% sure what the ninjas' ages are, but here's where I place them at this time. Cole:19, Kai & Jay:18, Zane: looks 18 or 19 but he's a robot so he's probably more like 40, Nya:17, Lloyd:16(but he's really 11). I didn't make Nya younger because I want her to be closer to Jay in age. I also want to keep her just slightly older looking than Lloyd.

How could one holiday have this many songs?

Lloyd glared, frustrated, at the hopelessly long list of Christmas carols. He was really regretting that he hadn’t realized this problem existed earlier, but he’d been busy the last couple of weeks. Charity events were strenuous for him. He still wasn’t used to getting that kind of attention. There’d been mentions of Christmas, sure, but people had been more excited to see his dragon or bug him for details about his battle against the Overlord. And now here he was: a week before Christmas and virtually clueless about the holiday. 

They’d decided to spend Christmas at the school. The students had gone home for the holidays, so they had the building to themselves. The ninja all already had rooms here, and there was plenty of room for visiting family members. Lloyd’s stomach fluttered nervously at the thought of all those people, which was silly. He knew it was silly. He’d met them all before and it really wasn’t that many more people. He was just worried he’d say or do something stupid. 

He’d been getting used to not being alone all the time; he was used to it really. But large crowds? Honestly, he was nervous every event he went to, especially when none of his friends went with him. Not only was he unused to the attention, but suddenly everyone expected him to be perfect. And he wasn’t. He really wasn’t. But he was the Golden Ninja, Savior of Ninjago, and that meant he had to at least try for perfection. 

Focusing back on the list of Christmas songs he’d pulled up on his phone, he decided it was best to just start at the top and work his way down from there. He shifted from where he was lying in his bed, reaching for his notebook so that he could take notes as he went. 

He never actually picked it up though. The sudden, loud knocking on his door caused him to jerk upright, nearly dropping his phone as he fumbled to hide it away. 

“Lloyd!” Jay’s voice shouted from the other side of the door. “You in there?”

For a moment, Lloyd considered not answering, but quickly decided against it. He couldn’t just hide away all day. “Yeah,” he answered, rolling out of bed and walking over to the door.

He opened the door to see Jay standing before him in full winter attire. Hat, scarf, gloves, hat, everything- all in blue, of course. Lloyd felt vaguely embarrassed that he was still in his pajamas. It was almost eleven o’clock now.

“How could you sleep in at a time like this?!” Jay gasped, glancing over the blonde’s somewhat ruffled appearance.

Lloyd sheepishly shrugged a shoulder, running one hand through his mussed-up, though admittedly naturally wild hair. He hadn’t slept in but… wait. He tilted his head, confused. “Time like what?” 

“Dude, it’s a week before Christmas and it snowed _a ton_ last night! It’s going to be a white Christmas!” Jay gushed. 

That reminded him of one of the songs titles he’d just read. Were White Christmases different from regular Christmases? “’Kay…so…”

Jay rolled his eyes in sarcastic exasperation. “Sooo we’re going to have a massive snowball fight! You have to get dressed! The others are already outside!”

Lloyd perked up. A snowball fight? That he could do. And it would be fun! He’d never really participated in an actual snowball fight before. Back at Darkley’s, snowball fights had been a far more dangerous activity. But there would be no rocks in these snowballs. “Cool! I’ll be ready in a minute.”

He shut the door and hastily threw on his clothes, then hesitated. He didn’t get cold anymore thanks to the ice element, but it felt weird to go out in normal, everyday clothes. It felt too much like bragging and it made him stick out. Zane still didn’t really get cold, being a robot and all, but Lloyd didn’t want to shove the reminder of who it was that stole his powers in his face. It wasn’t like Lloyd had _wanted_ to steal their powers from them, but they had to resent him at least a little for it. Probably more than a little. Definitely more than a little.

In the end, he decided to add gloves and a heavy jacket. It wasn’t quite enough to be seen as normal, but it also didn’t make him look completely out of place.

His finished outfit was forest green with gold highlights, except for his pants which were brown. He might be the Golden ninja now, but green was still his favorite color. Just plain gold was kind of boring.

Satisfied with his choices, he shoved on his boots then rejoined Jay in the hallway.

“Ugh, finally,” Jay said, grabbing Lloyd’s arm and rushing him forward through the school’s empty corridors. 

“You seem really excited about this,” Lloyd observed, keeping pace with his friend.

“Of course I am! Snowball fights are awesome! Especially with a bunch of super awesome ninja playing!” Jay’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

“I would have thought that all the snowballs Zane’s chucked at you would turn you off,” Lloyd teased.

“Never,” Jay declared fervently, grinning. “Besides, this is the perfect opportunity for my revenge!”

“So, are we doing teams, or is it every man for himself?” Lloyd asked as they headed down the stairs to the ground floor.

“Teams, duh. That way we can build epic forts with which to rage our war.”

Lloyd chuckled, past worries forgotten. “Did we already choose the teams?”

Jay bobbed his head energetically. “Yep. You, me, and Kai versus Zane, Cole, and Nya.”

They’d probably put him and Zane on opposing teams in an attempt to even things out. Lloyd wasn’t going to use his powers, it wouldn’t be fair, but Lloyd was more than just his powers. “So,” Lloyd smirked, his eyes glinting mischievously, “Nya’s on the other team, huh?”

He smirked even harder at Jay’s blush. “Yes, but it will not affect my performance in battle. I am fully committed to crushing the enemy.”

Lloyd laughed, shaking his head. Whatever Jay said, he had the sneaking suspicion that only Zane and Cole would be getting hit. Come to think of it, Kai was probably going to be gunning more for Zane and Cole too… Well, Lloyd knew his main target was going to be. She wouldn’t take it personally. If anything, she’d be grateful that he wasn’t babying her.

They finally burst outside and Jay released his arm. The whole world was covered in a beautiful glistening white; bright, despite the cloudy skies. There was at least two feet of snow on the ground, still mostly undisturbed.

Lloyd had always loved snow. The quiet, the way the world became new with its sparkling white coat, the way his breathe puffed out little clouds, all the fun things you could do with it… Strangely enough, Lloyd found himself missing the cold that was suddenly very noticeably absent. He hadn’t truly realized it was missing until he saw the snow. He didn’t like freezing any more than other people, but there was something about that pure, piercing sensation. Without it, the snow almost seemed fake. Hopefully, he’d eventually learn how to tone it back a bit and let himself feel at least a little cold. For now though, he was sure he’d get used to it.

Lloyd and Jay made their way down to where the others had gathered at the bottom of the hill by the field they used for soccer. The flat, open surface limited a lot of variables already, supposedly forcing a more open, straightforward fight. Supposedly. The forest did line one side of the field after all.

Cole looked up as they approached. “There you guys are.”

“Good morning, Lloyd,” Zane greeted and Nya echoed the greeting.

Kai raced up to stand beside their youngest member. “Great, kid! Now we can start!” The fire ninja slung an arm around his shoulders. Lloyd started at the sudden contact, but recovered almost immediately. “I hope you guys are ready to lose!” Kai boasted, glancing back to where Cole, Zane and Nya were standing. 

“In your dreams, brother,” Nya shot back.

“We call team Awesome,” Cole declared. 

“Hey,” Jay started to protest, team Awesome being a highly coveted team name among the ninja.

Lloyd cut him off. “’Kay,” he agreed, “We’ll be team Ultra Awesome.” Sometimes he impressed even himself with his brilliance.

“Wait, what?!” Cole blanched, whipping around to stare disbelievingly at the blonde. “You can’t do that!”

A sly smile spread across Lloyd’s face and he crossed his arms. “Sure I can. I just did.”

“Genius,” Kai commented with smug glee, giving Lloyd an approving look. The look stirred something warm in his chest, and his smile grew even wider in response.

Nya rolled her eyes. “You boys are so immature.”

“The current team names will suffice,” Zane said, “We should define the rules for this competition.” 

“Let’s keep it simple,” Nya suggested, “Each team has one hour to build their forts at the opposite ends of the field. No fighting during that time and you can only use snow for the forts. No tree branches or anything. Everyone agree?”

There was a chorus of agreement. “I shall set my internal timer,” Zane offered, “I’ve synced the countdown to the scoreboard.” They all turned and, sure enough, the timer now showed a sixty-minute time frame. “Commencing countdown.”

The two teams bolted, as fast as one could bolt through two feet of previously undisturbed snow, to opposite ends of the field. As soon as they reached their appointed side, Kai gathered them into a team huddle. “Ok, we need a plan. How should we build our fort?” His eyes slid over to meet Lloyd’s. 

“I’m not using my powers to build the fort, Kai. It wouldn’t be fair,” Lloyd said, guessing what his older brother was thinking.

Kai didn’t pout exactly. It was more of a huff. Not that Lloyd didn’t share the sentiment; he totally understood. He was definitely going to set aside a day in the probably near future to create the most epic, over-the-top snow fort known to man. Who wouldn’t in his position? It was going to be awesome. But now just wasn’t the time. 

“It’s a natural ability though,” Kai protested, then his shoulders slumped in defeat. “But- you’re right. Would’ve been cool though. Zane’s probably over there calculating the most efficient fort structure and, I dunno, aero dynamic snowballs.”

“We don’t need elemental powers,” Jay said confidentially, “We have me, and I’m a master at building things.”

“Really?” Kai asked, drily, “Huh. I must of imagined that ‘upgraded tea-“

“Ok,” Jay interrupted, sounding defensive, “so it had a few minor kinks.”

Already knowing how this argument was going to play out, Lloyd stopped paying attention. Instead, he looked thoughtfully over to where team Awesome had begun construction on what would probably end up resembling a castle more than a fort. Kai had made a good point. Zane _would_ be able to come up with an effective, fancy fort design. That, coupled with Cole’s strength and Nya’s experience, meant there was no way his own team was going to be able to outbuild them. It was a lost cause. An unattainable goal. An impossible dream. Everybody on his team was _ok_ at fort building, but they just didn’t have the architectural smarts or the strength to compete with the other team. Therefore, their plan of attack couldn’t depend on their team having the superior fort. 

He returned his focus to the others’ bickering. “Er, guys. We’re wasting time. They’ve already started on their fort.”

They both startled, and turned to look at the other team, who already had most of their front wall built. Man, they were really moving over there. 

“Oh, come on,” Jay whined. 

“Drats,” Kai cursed. “Who are we kidding? We’ll never beat them at something like this.” 

Lloyd had been forming a plan in his head and the last detail clicked in place. “Power of positive thinking, Kai,” he chided lightly, “Besides, I have a few ideas we can use.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ninja have a snowball fight. Lloyd likes making thinks more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this chapter was originally going to be combined with what is in the next chapter too. But then I decided it was getting long and that the end of the snowball fight was a good place to break it off.

One minute left on the clock.

Cole added more snow to one of the pillars scattered across the roof’s walls, watching as the final seconds ticked down. Zane had had a lot of great ideas for their fort. 

It had two floors, both about nine feet by twelve feet. The top one was open to the sky and was supported by the pillars of snow Zane had constructed beneath it. The bottom floor, on the other hand, had a ceiling that had been made so it arched a couple inches above Cole’s head, since he was the tallest. There were small, square holes about three-fourths way up lining each of the bottom floor’s walls to let in light and so they could see if anyone was nearby outside. The holes weren’t big enough the throw a snowball through, but that was the point. Within the lower level there were piles of premade snowballs and the stairs to the roof. The fort’s only entrance was in the back, hidden from the other team’s view. The roof was protected by a three-foot wall around the edges with pillars of snow added on top. These pillars would give them cover to duck away from an attack, but wouldn’t hinder their own ability to throw a snowball. Overall, it was an impenetrable fortress. 

Yep, Cole was confident about their fort. No way was anyone going to be able to take them in here. The other team’s fort wasn’t nearly as impressive. He looked across the plain of snow where Lloyd’s team was building their base.

He knew none of them were expert fort builders over there and they had Kai, but the fort still seemed really simple. He’d been expecting Lloyd to come up with something clever, but it was just a huge wall of snow for the front with some lower walls angling off for the sides. It looked strong at least.

“Hey, Nya, how long do you think we’ll have to wait before they cave and come over here?” he asked, glancing over to where she too was strengthening some pillars. Behind them Zane came up carrying more snowballs for their rooftop snowball stash.

She didn’t stop packing on snow as she answered, “Not long, hopefully. If we all just bunker down in our forts, it’ll get boring pretty fast. I don’t think we have anything to worry about though. I’ll be amazed if Kai lasts five minutes.”

Cole’s lips curved into a smile. “Yeah, none of them are really known for their patience.” Lloyd was honestly the most mature one out of the three of them and he was technically eleven.

The scoreboard blared as the timer finally reached zero and all three of them simultaneously turned to study the other team’s fort. Cole could see Kai peeking over at them from behind their wall. They must have stairs or something leading up to it. It did give then a height advantage, but it would only help them if they were stupid enough to leave the security of their fort, which wasn’t happening. Nope, they were staying right here.

That was the plan, anyway.

A quiet _swish_ ing sound was the only warning he got before the snowball smashed into the back of his head. 

_Fifteen minutes earlier…_

“But why do _I_ have to be the one to stay behind?” Kai complained, crossing his arms sullenly. 

Lloyd had known Kai was going to kick up a fuss over this part. “Because, Kai, you’re wearing red,” Lloyd explained again. “Your colors don’t camouflage at all in this environment and we need to optimize for maximum stealthiness.” The red really did stand out. It was like the way you don’t notice a cardinal until it snows, then it suddenly becomes the most eye-catching bird in the yard. 

“I’m a ninja, it doesn’t matter what color I’m wearing,” Kai argued, giving him an annoyed look “Besides, blue doesn’t exactly blend in either and Jay’s going.”

“Blends in better than red,” Jay countered.

“And somebody needs to stay behind,” Lloyd reasoned, “If they look over here and don’t see anyone they might get suspicious. And once we attack from behind, you coming from the front will make them feel like they’re surrounded. It’s a crucial part of the plan.” He gazed up at his older brother with eager, pleading eyes. They weren’t puppy dog eyes, whatever the others said. That made him sound like a little kid.

Kai’s stance softened slightly and he let out one last grumble before sighing. “Ugh, fine. But you guys better hurry so I can get in on the action. I’m not gonna stand around all day while you two get all the fun.”

Lloyd knew exactly how much getting left behind sucked, so he wasn’t unsympathetic, but it was for the plan. The plan that was going to give him both the immense pleasure of seeing the looks of utter shock on the others’ faces when they jumped them and the sweetness of victory. They couldn’t afford to blow this operation. “Oh, don’t worry, we will,” he promised, grinning in anticipation. He glanced up at the clock. “Okay, time to move out. Kai, take your position.”

Kai shot him an amused look, his previous annoyance seemingly forgotten, and Lloyd was too slow in dodging the hand that shot out to ruffle his hair. He let out an indignant squawk, but the fire ninja was already starting to ascend the snowy steps. Lloyd huffed and shook his head in an attempt to fix his hair. Kai may or may not find himself ‘accidentally’ hit by a snowball later. Jay was no help and just chuckled at their antics.

While Kai climbed the stairs to the wall top, Lloyd and Jay moved along the wall until they were as close to the edge as they could get without being seen by the enemy. The fort’s high walls had been built almost purely to hid them from the other team’s view. From his place atop the wall, Kai casually plopped some more snow onto the fort, secretly observing the other team’s movements for an opening. 

After about three minutes, Lloyd was starting to get worried. Beside him, Jay was getting antsy as well. He chewed his bottom lip anxiously. If they didn’t go soon…

“Go now!” Kai hissed from above them.

The two of them immediately darted forward, crossing the few yards of open space between them and the forest in seconds. Once in the safety of the trees, Lloyd signaled for Jay to follow him. 

Using all their ninja skills, they crept forward, keeping low to the ground. Lloyd preferred traveling the higher route, but they couldn’t use the treetops without disturbing the snow and giving away their location. Carefully, keeping a keen eye on team Awesome’s movements, they maneuvered to the part of the forest that lay behind the enemy fort.

From his crouched position, Lloyd peered through the snow-laden foliage. It was just as he’d expected; the entrance to the fort was in the back. Not that it had been hard to figure out. Really, there was nowhere else it could have been since they’d been able to see everywhere else from their own fort. It was a clever move on team Awesome’s part. If they’d tried to attack them head on, it would have been difficult to break in. But now they were going to turn that decision against them. 

“When do we go in?” Jay whispered excitedly.

“We have to wait until just before time runs out,” he breathed, scooping up some snow and forming it into snowballs. Just in case. “That’s when they’ll be looking towards our fort.” The rules only said they couldn’t start fighting until the hour ended. There was nothing that said they had to start from their base.

Lloyd knew they weren’t really armed at the moment, especially compared to the snowballs team Awesome must have stockpiled. That was part of the plan. His own team hadn’t bothered making very many snowballs for their own base since they didn’t intend to use it. It was usable and really wasn’t a bad fort, but Lloyd knew there was no way the others were going to leave the safety of their fancy fort to come attack them. No, they would have just waited until team Ultra Awesome came to them. That would have made things too easy though and where was the fun in that? As for where they’d get snowballs, securing the basement would cut off team Awesome’s supply and give them all the ammo they could need.

Part of his view of the scoreboard was blocked by the fort, but he could still see the timer. They had just under two minutes. Perfect.

Lloyd waited until the clock had ticked down to its last sixty seconds, then quickly checked where everyone was (Nya and Cole were on the roof, facing away from them. Check. Zane was somewhere inside. Not great, but manageable). Reassured that they were in the clear, he nudged Jay’s arm before making a stealthy beeline for the entrance. Thankfully, most of the snow around the entryway had been cleared away and used for the fort, so they didn’t have to struggle through knee deep snow. Wordlessly, they both pressed against the fort wall, staying low enough that they wouldn’t be seen through the fort’s peepholes. 

Listening carefully for any sign of movement, Lloyd inched forward until he could peek inside. It looked pretty cool, mostly open with some pillars that he would _not_ trust himself with making to help keep up the roof. 

He couldn’t stop the grin from appearing on his face when he located the two _giant_ piles of snowballs; one by the stairs and one closer to the wall on his right. He just kept growing more and more impressed with everything team Awesome had accomplished in only one hour. He almost felt a little bad that they were about to steal it all. But this was snowball _war_. You had to do what you had to do. And he already wasn’t using his powers, so they couldn’t fault him too much for his sneakier approach to things. 

Zane was standing by the pile by the stairs. His back was hiding exactly what he was doing, but he seemed to be gathering snowballs from the pile, probably (hopefully) to bring them upstairs. Moving his head back, Lloyd willed for Zane to hurry up. A few seconds later, he heard footsteps and, yes, the ice ninja was heading upstairs! He’d been counting down in his head and they had less than twenty seconds now.

He slipped into the fort, closely followed by Jay. Lloyd motioned to the pile by the stairs and Jay’s eyes lit up and he nodded in understanding.

After grabbing a few more snowballs from the pile to add to his own, Lloyd moved to wait at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, none of them are really known for their patience,” he hears Cole say from above them. Impatient? Who, them? Kai and Jay, maybe, but Lloyd was plenty patient. He had to wait for things all the time. Cole was so going to be the first one to get snowballed the second time ran out.

And that was exactly what happened a few seconds later when the scoreboard announced that all promises of peace had come to an end. The snowball found its mark smack in the middle of Cole’s head. It was immediately followed by one launched at Nya’s shoulder and another that hit the very center of Zane’s back.

Their shocked expressions were priceless. 

He burst out laughing. It was times like these that he wished he had a camera on him. He had a collection going of the times he did and it was amazing. His brothers had yet to find out about it.

Cole, who hadn’t been sent reeling like the others by the sudden, unexpected force, gasped, “What the- Lloyd?!”

“How did you-?” Zane started, but Lloyd wasn’t going to give them time to recover. He sent a barrage of snowballs their way until he ran out, then moved aside to let Jay take his place. 

The others, who had now recovered from their momentary surprise, were scrambling to get to the pile of snowballs they had on the roof. Lloyd lost sight of them for a bit as he snatched some more snowballs from the staircase pile to replenish his supply, then headed up to replace Jay. 

Back on the roof, he could see that Kai had abandon their fort and was running over to help them. Team Awesome had reached their snowballs, but they were already running low. All they had to do now was dodge the few attacks they had left until their pile was depleted.

That was the plan, anyway.

He hadn’t expected Cole to jump.

Honestly, he should have taken the possibility into account, it wasn’t like the fort was all that high and there was plenty of snow to make the landing softer. And they were ninja, that helped too. But he’d thought they would want to try and defend the base they worked so hard on.

Things got chaotic from there on out.

First, Cole had tried to break back into their fort, but was stopped by Jay and Kai. Then the rest of team Awesome had taken the plunge and went to try to help Cole. 

After that failure and a flurry of snowballs hurled from both sides (Lloyd was the only one who ever hit Nya), the enemy had decided to retreat to his team’s base. So they’d basically traded bases. By that point, team Awesome’s focus had shifted away from tactical victory and more towards let’s-just-have-fun-with-this-and-throw-as-many- snowballs-at-the-enemy-as-possible, so they had charged after them. 

It was only then that it occurred to Lloyd that he didn’t know how one actually won a snowball fight. He’d assumed victory came by mercilessly pummeling your opponent with snowballs until they admitted defeat. However, thinking about it now, it was highly unlikely that either side would do this. But it wasn’t capturing the enemy base either, they were way past that. And they didn’t have lives or a point system in place. Maybe it was just until one team surrendered to the other… This could take a while.

It ended up taking about forty- five minutes. The madness had gone back and forth getting continuously crazier the longer it went on until it eventually devolved into everyone being in the center of the field just dumping snow on each other. There hadn’t been a winner either. 

“Ok,” Cole finally said, shivering from where he was currently covered in snow. “Maybe we should just call it a draw. I’m freezing over here.”

“Yeah,” Jay agreed, teeth chattering, “I don’t think we’ll have a winner anyway. We aren’t even really fighting anymore.”

“What? We were totally winning!” Kai protested, though his cheeks were flushed and he was shivering as well.

Had they been cold long? Well, they must have been cold to some degree the entire time, but when had it gotten bad? Lloyd wasn’t registering cold at the moment so he couldn’t tell. He was wet though. Very wet. Stuffing snow down each other’s clothes probably hadn’t helped. 

Lloyd shook himself, sending the snow Zane had just dumped on him flying. “I’m with Cole. Let’s just call it a tie. I don’t think there’s even a way one of us could win at this point. Either way, both teams were awesome.” The others smiled a little at the pun. 

“Some of us were just more awesome than others,” Kai said, shaking the snow out of his own hair. 

The golden ninja looked over towards team Awesome’s fort. “You guys definitely had the better fort though,” he said admiringly. “How did you guys manage to make all that in only an hour?”

“Thank you,” Zane said, “Your fort was good as well. It was simpler, but still very effective.”

“Yeah, they were both good. It was kind of nice that we all got to test out both bases,” Nya said, shaking her head as she started walking towards the school. “We switched places three times.”

“It did get pretty wild there,” Jay grinned as they all began to follow her to the warmth that awaited them inside.

“Should have known Lloyd would come up with kind of scheme,” Cole said, reaching out and ruffling Lloyd’s hair. Again? Really? He was beginning to suspect his brothers had some sort of inside joke going on that he wasn’t aware of. Or maybe it was just a big brother thing. 

“Scheme?” Lloyd asked innocently, widening his eyes a little for effect, “It wasn’t a scheme. It was a tactical battle plan.” His thoughts flashed back to the comical shock they’d displayed when they’d first attacked and he chuckled. “The looks on your faces,” he snickered. 

“Little hooligan,” Cole said affectionately. He then continued more thoughtfully, “I think it did end up making things more interesting though.”

“We should do something more Christmas-y next!” Jay exclaimed as they passed over the threshold and back into the school.

…dang it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually found the snowball fight harder to write than I thought it would be and it also ended up being way longer than I had originally thought, which is why I split the chapter. 
> 
> Just to warn you guys, it will be a miracle if I manage to give this fic scheduled updates. I don’t have this story pre- written and I’m just writing in my spare time. For the rest of my fics, I’m going to have the majority of it written before I start posting it, but this one is going to be more randomly updated. I’ll try to get the chapters up as soon as I’m done writing them.
> 
> I’m very critical of my work and I am a horrible judge when it regards what I’ve written. I usually think whatever I’ve written is pretty bad even if it isn’t, but that’s kinda how I am with everything. I guess I’m a perfectionist.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading my fic! I hope you’re enjoying it so far. I’ve got my computers mid-term tomorrow morning, but I wanted to post this before I dove into hardcore studying. Wish me luck!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ninja argue about the Christmas tree. Lloyd just wants to get out of there, but Kai isn't willing to let him go so easily. (I'm bad at chapter summaries.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! Finally, another chapter! I'm writing as fast as I can, but a lot of the end of the year projects are coming due. I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I can.

It didn’t take long for them to shed their winter attire and gather in the kitchen. The promise of hot cocoa was a great motivator. While the rest of the rowdy group sat down around the table, still teasing and joking with each other, Zane whipped up a batch of his delicious cocoa.

As Lloyd curled his fingers around his mug (which was, of course, green), he was pleased to find that he could feel some of the warmth the drink was emanating. He wasn’t sure why heat seemed easier to feel than cold, but it gave him hope that he could figure out how it all worked in the future.

His train of thought was interrupted when Jay asked the dreaded question, “So, what do you guys want to do next? Carole karaoke? Christmas movie marathon?”

“No,” Cole said, “No singing.”

“Oh, come on, Cole,” Jay said, adding even more mini-marshmallows to his already nearly overflowing cup. “It’s the Christmas season. You _have_ to sing at some point.” 

You did? Lloyd resisted the urge to bit his lip, which would have immediately signaled to the others that he was nervous about something. There were only three songs he was confident with. Confidentish. He also didn’t have much experience with singing. Granted, none of the other ninja were particularly great singers, but still. Those two weaknesses did not mix well. Thankfully, Kai spoke up.

“We don’t need to set aside time for _singing_. There are way better things to do.”

“We could make Christmas cookies,” Cole suggested eagerly. Lloyd glanced up hopefully. He could make cookies. And he could definitely eat cookies. 

The others, unfortunately, didn’t agree. Their “No’s” were simultaneous.

“After the travesty you made last time, you aren’t allowed anywhere near a mixing bowl,” Jay protested with a shudder.

“I was sick for days!” Kai agreed.

“And even if the rest of us made them now, you would eat them all before Christmas even arrives,” Zane added. Nya nodded in agreement. Lloyd took a careful sip of cocoa to avoid participating in the conversation.

“I would not!” Cole said, sounding affronted. The others’ disbelieving looks spoke volumes. “…Depending on how many there are.”

“We could decorate the tree,” Nya offered, “If you guys could just agree on how to do it.”

Right, the tree. There was an ongoing argument on how the Christmas tree should be decorated. Zane and Cole wanted a more traditional, themed tree, like red and gold or something like that. Kai and Jay wanted to be able to throw on any ornament they chose, which would create a more colorful, mish-mash look. He and Nya were neutral.

Lloyd could see the appeal in both methods, so he would be fine with whatever they decided. It wasn’t like he had any personal ornaments to hang though, so maybe that was influencing his view a bit. He was fairly certain that the other ninja were arguing for the way their families normally did things. Lloyd had never put an ornament on a Christmas tree in his life, so he didn’t feel like he should have a say in the matter.

The others didn’t know that though. They kept trying to bribe him into breaking the tie for their side. It was fun in some ways and nerve-racking in others. As fun as it was to mess with them a little, he felt guilty because he had no intention of choosing a side. He was secretly hoping Nya would be the one to end the feud. They wouldn’t get mad at Nya. Lloyd, however, wouldn’t get off so easily. Whichever side he didn’t choose would, at the very least, be annoyed at him for his betrayal. For him, it was a lose-lose situation. Best to wait it out and see if things changed into something more favorable.

“We could,” Kai said, “If those two,” he gestured towards Zane and Cole, “would just admit to the obvious superiority of a themeless tree.”

“But a traditional tree has more visual appeal,” Zane reasoned, finishing the second batch of cocoa and turning the oventop down to the lowest setting.

“First of all,” Jay began, reaching past the ice ninja to refill his mug, “that’s not necessarily true. And secondly, how am I supposed to put all my favorite ornaments on, if they all have to be red or something crazy like that?”

“How many favorite ornaments could you possibly have?” Cole questioned.

“They’re _memories_ , Cole,” Jay asserted, “I made a lot of them myself.” He sounded pretty proud of that. Lloyd wondered if these ornaments did something special. That could be cool. Jay did like inventy type things. Hopefully, there wasn’t anything that might set the tree on fire.

“You can’t hog the tree with your stuff, Jay,” Cole huffed, “Especially with crafts you made in kindergarten.”

“Not _just_ kindergarten,” Jay corrected, taking a large gulp of cocoa, then letting out a startled yelp.

“What’s the point of it looking all stuck up and fancy, anyway?” Kai jumped in, “There’s no fun in that.”

“Organizing a themed tree is just as enjoyable,” Zane stated calmly.

“Come on, Nya,” Kai complained, turning to his sister for support. “Back me up here. We’ve always done a normal tree.”

“I’m regretting bringing it up,” she sighed, more from amusement than actual annoyance. The argument, while passionate, held no real anger. “We’re running out of time, you know. I don’t see why we can’t just get two trees.” It seemed like a reasonable solution, but he wasn’t sure where they’d put it.

“We can’t split everything up like that,” Kai argued. “All the presents should be under one tree so we’re all together.” He spun to look at Jay, who nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

“I agree that one tree would be preferred,” Zane said, finally taking some cocoa for himself. “But Nya is correct that a decision must be made soon. We don’t want Christmas Eve to arrive and have our tree still bare.”

Jay nodded again, which was a little weird. Lloyd had been expecting a more vocal response. Cole apparently thought something was a little off as well because he shot Jay a curious look. Kai, however, was looking at Lloyd. Warning bells went off in his head.

Why was Kai looking at him? His fingers twitched nervously. Maybe he should say something, he hadn’t really said anything yet. But what should he say? What if he accidently said something stupid?

His eyes discreetly darted around the room before settling on Jay. He recalled his yelp from earlier. Bingo. If he played this right, he could end this conversation altogether.

Cole continued speaking, “Well, you guys can still put some of your stuff on our tree, but we can’t do the reverse. It’s more of a compromise to do it our way.”

Lloyd put one elbow on the table then rested his head on his hand. “I don’t know, you all make great points. What do you think, Jay?” he asked with near angelic innocence, a small smile spreading across his face. “Anything to add?”

Jay’s face flushed a shade redder and he started to shake his head. Then he switched to nodding, then finally back to shaking again. It was hilarious and Lloyd couldn’t help chuckling a little. He was so glad he’d been right.

Now everyone had turned their attention to the floundering blue ninja. They all had similarly puzzled expressions, so they clearly hadn’t put together what had happened yet. 

Cole gave Lloyd a questioning look. When he didn’t give any answers, he turned to Jay. “Something wrong, Jay?” Cole asked, sounding unsure if he should be concerned or amused. 

Jay glanced around the table, then towards the door before concluding that there was no getting out of it. He slumped back in his chair, defeated. “I bunt my tong,” he admitted sullenly, his voice sounding funny as he was unable to pronounce certain letters.

There was a moment of silence.

Then they all erupted into laughter. It filled the room, bouncing off the walls, but not echoing. The kitchen wasn’t that big. After a few seconds, Jay joined in as well.

“A Christmas miracle,” Cole chortled.

Eventually, the laughter died down. Lloyd relaxed, letting some of the tension leave his muscles now that he’d gotten out of any potentially humiliating conversations. At least until Kai let out one last snicker and turned to look directly at him. “What about you, Lloyd? What do you want to do next?” Seriously?

“Um,” Lloyd stalled, grasping for an excuse or an activity he was comfortable with. “I was actually planning to do some Christmas shopping this afternoon.” Masterful excuse making. It was perfect.

He almost sighed in relief when Nya said, “I still have some shopping to do, too.”

“Works for me,” Cole agreed with a carefree shrug.

“There are some things I wish to purchase as well,” Zane confessed.

Jay nodded. “We ca’ wath a movee toonight.”

Everyone had finished their cocoa by this point, even Jay, despite his injury. Probably hadn’t helped his tongue any, but Zane’s cocoa was worth the sacrifice.

Lloyd reached out and grabbed the others’ empty mugs, balancing three in each hand, and brought them over to the sink.

“Ah, Lloyd, you didn’t have to do that,” Nya told him as he rinsed then out and loaded them into the dishwasher.

He rolled his eyes and waved her off. “It only takes like, ten seconds, and we’d all get in each others’ way if we all went up at once.” Honestly, Lloyd hated doing the dishes, especially if there was something else he wanted to do, but it was just a few mugs. It wasn’t a big deal.

The others started filing out, except for Kai who walked up behind him. “I could go with you,” the spiky haired ninja offered, leaning casually against the counter.

Lloyd quirked an eyebrow. “You mean… gift shopping?” he asked, somewhat amused and a little confused. “You can’t go with me. That would ruin the surprise.”

“Oh. Right,” Kai said with thinly veiled frustration.

He could feel Kai’s eyes on him as he left the room. He didn’t understand it. He wasn’t acting that weird. Kai had missed way more obvious things before, so why was he noticing something was off now? Maybe the lack of an apocalyptic threat looming over them made it easier to notice the littler things.

He hurried back to his bedroom to grab his phone. It was exactly where he’d left it and when he turned it on, the list of carols stared back, taunting him.

Letting out a frustrated groan, he placed the phone in his pocket. He lingered in his room longer than he probably should have, trying to decide where he was actually going to go.

The truth was, he already had gifts for everyone. That part had been easy. Except for his parents’, which had taken significantly more thought. Well, his dad’s wasn’t quite finished yet, but there was nothing he needed to buy for it.

By the time he’d made his decision and exited back into the hallway, it was quiet. The others must have already left to do their own things.

His footsteps seemed to echo through the empty halls. Now this was a familiar Christmas experience. Wandering through an abandoned school.

Not that having no people in the school had been bad, it had been nice not having to worry about other students or the teachers for a couple weeks. And he’d been able to do basically anything he wanted during that time so long as he didn’t burn down the building.

It had been lonely though. In more ways than one.

Literally everyone else in the school had had _somewhere_ to go for the holidays. He’d only had Darkley’s. It had left him feeling small, with a gaping hole in his chest and a longing for something he didn’t know.

Suddenly realizing he’d stopped walking, Lloyd shook himself. There was no point in dwelling on the past. It was the past. It shouldn’t be sullying his present.

He started moving forward again, picking up speed as he went. No need to hang around in an empty hallway, after all. By the time he’d reached what was currently serving as their family room, he was going so fast that he nearly powerwalked into Kai.

“Sorry,” Lloyd yelped, jerking back to avoid the collision.

Kai blinked in surprise, though he wasn’t sure if it was because Lloyd hadn’t left yet or the near crash. Then he seemed to collect himself. “Someone’s in a hurry,” he observed, “There a sale or something?”

Lloyd could feel the heat rising to his cheeks and he shifted on his feet. Of course it _had_ to be Kai. Just when he was making his escape- wait, he hadn’t been _waiting_ for him, had he? Kai wouldn’t put that much effort into something so trivial, right? Lloyd was just overthinking things. He tended to do that a lot. “Um, I don’t think so,” he said lamely, “It’s just, faster than walking.”

Kai chuckled. “True. Might crash into someone though.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, embarrassed. It was true though. What was faster than a straight line? Running in a straight line. He’d like to run around Kai right about now, but his older brother was a roadblock that didn’t appear to be ready to move.

Kai studied him for a second, struggling with some inner debate. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask you… Is something…bothering you?”

Lloyd congratulated himself on holding back his flinch. He forced his body into a more casual position, focusing on Kai’s forehead to avoid his probing eyes, “Bothering me? No, everything’s great. Why do you ask?” He kept his voice even and it came across as completely believable. He was a great liar when he needed to be.

Kai seemed uncertain. “Well, you’ve been kinda quiet since you got here. And you’re not as upbeat as usual. I’ve hardly seen you except for the snowball fight.” He wasn’t being that weird. “I mean, I know Christmas must have been different at Darkley’s with all the encouraging bad behavior and stuff,” Well he was right about that. For the other kids at least. It really hadn’t affected Lloyd. “so maybe this is all a little unfamiliar to you-“ No, no, no, no, no. Kai was hitting too close to the truth. 

“No,” Lloyd cut him off. “I mean, yeah, it’s a little different, but it’s not a problem or anything.” 

“Well, good,” Kai said, “because none of us would judge you if-“ He suddenly tensed and broke off from his would be lecture or pep talk or whatever it was he’d been going for, his eyes moving to look at something over Lloyd’s shoulder. 

Curious, Lloyd turned to see his dad walking through the door with a box of decorations. He felt the initial rush of excitement he usually felt at seeing him, not dead and not evil. It was almost immediately replaced with a jolt of panic, which caused the lamp beside the couch to flicker. Drat. It still happened sometimes. But it was the middle of the day and neither one of them were looking at it, so he didn’t think they noticed. His panic was totally rational though because his dad was the one person who _absolutely could not know_. And his mom, his mom couldn’t know either. He had to get out of here.

“Lloyd, Kai,” Garmadon greeted, though most of his attention was directed towards his son.

“Hi, dad,” Lloyd said politely, then turned back to Kai, “Well, I should head out. Wanna be back in time for the movie.” He skirted around Kai and headed for the exit. “See you later, dad.”

Ugh. Well it was almost over. Once he had a rudimentary knowledge about Christmas, he could fake the rest. The Darkley’s plea would cover for any minor slipups. He was sick of all the dodging. He just wanted to enjoy Christmas with his family.

***

Kai watched, frustrated, as Lloyd retreated. There was definitely something up. He just wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe he should have approached it differently or asked Cole to do it. Cole was generally good with this kind of stuff.

Kai wasn’t the best with feelings. He preferred a problem he could punch, but he wasn’t oblivious of his surroundings and he had years of brothering experience over the others. He knew that Lloyd was acting suspiciously unLloydy. The kid should be bouncing off the walls for a family-oriented holiday like this.

And now he was alone in a room with Lor- Garmadon. As if talking about feelings hadn’t been awkward enough.

He still wasn’t comfortable with the ex-dark lord. He couldn’t just forget everything he’d done to them. The man looked so different, so normal, now, Kai could sometimes forget they were the same person. Until he talked and then Kai remembered. His voice was the only thing that hadn’t changed. It had caused him to jump more than once when he wasn’t expecting it. Not because he had ever been scared of Lord Garmadon or anything like that, old habits just died hard.

But Garmadon was a good guy now. Lloyd had cured him, and Kai couldn’t deny the way his little brother’s eyes lit up whenever his dad entered the room. Besides, it wasn’t like the guy was around all the time, so Kai just had to be civil for a short while.

Garmadon sighed, staring after Lloyd, and placed the box next to the fireplace with several other boxes holding even more decorations, most of which were for the still barren tree in the corner. Then his eyes met Kai’s and they both stood awkwardly for a few seconds.

“He was in a hurry,” Garmadon noted.

“Yeah, Christmas shopping,” Kai told him. Another awkward pause.

“I haven’t seen much of him since I arrived,” Garmadon revealed, sounding regretful. His eyes looked tired. “I fear he may be avoiding me.”

Kai was surprised. What would make Lloyd avoid his dad? The ninja he could understand, but his dad? “Lloyd wouldn’t do that. He’s thrilled whenever you’re around.”

Garmadon smiled, “Yes, and I love being with him.” He heaved another sigh. “But these past few days, he’s run away from me whenever I enter the room.”

Yeah, something was definitely wrong. “I don’t think it’s you, if that makes you feel any better,” he said, feeling obligated to try and make him feel better since he was pretty sure it wasn’t Lo- Garmadon’s fault. “He’s been doing that to everyone.”

Garmadon frowned. “I wish I could ask him what was troubling him, but he seems set on avoiding me.”

“Lloyd can be a little weird sometimes,” Kai said with mixed fondness and frustration. “Usually because he has some crazy high self-standard he’s trying to keep.” He really didn’t need to be perfect. He wasn’t sure if that was what this was about, but that was where, like, 80% of Lloyd’s problems usually stemmed from. “I’ll talk to him,” he promised.

“Thank you, Kai.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do any of your families have arguments about how to decorate your tree? My sister always wants to do a fancy tree, while the rest of us want to put all the family ornaments on.
> 
> And, oh my gosh, Sons of Garmadon was amazing!!! That cliffhanger!!! I can't wait for the next season!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lloyd's wandering around. Kai's coming after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took me so long to get out. Things just got really busy and then I got distracted with another project. I also got stuck on one part on this chapter that took me a bit to work out. Don't worry this story won't go unfinished, I've already started work on the last chapter. I don't know how long it will take me, but it definitely won't be as long as the wait for this one. Again, sorry, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Pancakes made everything better. Lloyd was a firm believer in this fact.

The diner he’d chosen to lay low in served them all day. A wise business decision on their part. He hadn’t eaten yet today, so naturally he’d gone somewhere with food. It also had free wi-fi, so it was perfect. He could multitask.

He’d gone in the opposite direction of where the others would be heading. Entirely different village, so there wouldn’t be any surprise run-ins. He’d never been to this diner before, but the pancakes were good. That was always a plus. He supposed he could have gotten something more lunchy, but he’d skipped breakfast and had been feeling a little down, then they’d dangled pancakes in front of his face. So really, he’d had no choice.

The corner booth he’d chosen was tucked in the back of the building, away from prying eyes. He was also wearing his green hoodie to partially cover his face as an extra precaution. Being a celebrity had its drawbacks. Especially when you were trying to hide from somebody. He really didn’t want to deal with the fallout of being recognized by an overzealous fan. 

Not that any of that was really necessary, there was little danger of him being discovered. The weather was keeping people from venturing out for the most part. Only three people had come in since he sat down and that was almost an hour and a half ago.

He’d spent that hour and a half scrolling through his phone and studying Christmas things. There was _a lot_. It was like he was cramming for a major test the night before the exam. (A normal test, like science. Darkley’s had had some _weird_ tests.) His brain was overloading and he didn’t think he could stuff much more in there without breaking something. And he knew he’d have to move soon. He was kinda loitering, even though he was ordering more pancakes every half hour, but it was still too early to go home. He wanted to get there right before whatever movie they’d be watching. 

He was feeling a lot more confident though. He’d skimmed through a bunch of Christmas stories and he got the gist of how it all worked. He was still anxious about the musical aspect, but he was pretty sure he could get away with not knowing them all perfectly. Darkley’s wouldn’t have allowed most of those songs about love and fellowship and being good anyway. Now he just had to act as if he’d always known these things and had done them all before. Easy. No problem.

Lloyd let out a sigh, turning off his phone and leaning back against the cushioned seat. Maybe he could go for a walk or something. It would be nice to be able to enjoy the scenery without having to deal with the cold.

He’d only been pondering over where he’d take this walk for a few minutes when his solitude was broken.

Even before the entrance bell jingled, he sensed the movement of the new arrivals. The once quiet diner was filled with excited chatter and Lloyd peered around the corner of the booth to get a better look. A group of teenagers who looked like they’d just come back from sledding or some other wintery activity were gathered by the front counter. Probably here for hot chocolate.

Well, he’d been about to leave anyway. Might as well let them have the place to themselves. And there were teenage girls in the group and teenage girls… could be weird.

He left a tip and slipped out the side exit before they realized he’d ever been there.

He’d parked his bike behind the building further hidden by a fence to avoid attention. His bike was totally awesome so it tended to turn some heads.

As he approached his bike, it occurred to him that they’d never specified an exact time for the movie. Not even if they were watching it before or after diner, which was a vital piece of information. Tonight was such a frustratingly vague term.

Lloyd stood next to his bike, running through his options. He supposed he could just ask them when they were watching the movie, but that could lead to some dangerous questions. Like, why do you want to know? Or, what movie do you want to watch? Or even, where are you now? He might be forced to lie, which he would hate, or worse get an invitation to hangout or start a full-blown conversation. Not even a text was entirely safe.

No, the safer option was just to take his walk somewhere near the school. That way he would be nearby for whatever happened and could possibly peek in on who had returned. He didn’t want to be the first one back, but he didn’t want to be the last one back either.

That narrowed things down a lot. Lloyd remembered Zane telling him that in the forest by the school there was a pond with a waterfall. He did like forests and he was curious to see if the water had frozen. Yeah, that would work.

Revving up his bike, he felt much more at ease now that he had a plan. And he was actually looking forward to a peaceful walk in a snow frosted forest.

His bike flew over the icy roads. Nya really did an amazing job with their vehicles. Jay too. It would have been a nightmare to drive in this without the snow treads.

The ride back to the school was uneventful, as expected. It didn’t take long to get back.

Instead of going to the garage, Lloyd hid his bike in some pine bushes a little way into the forest. One of the perks of being the green ninja was your color scheme was natural camouflage. Ok, yeah, he was technically the golden ninja now, but most of his stuff was still green. It was his favorite color and he would feel pretentious if all of his stuff was gold.

He did stealthily peek in on the garage though. Thankfully, most of the snow by the garage had already been packed down or shoveled away, so he didn’t have to worry about leaving footprints. Only Kai and Jay’s vehicles were there at the moment which meant he probably had a decent amount of time.

Assured, Lloyd retreated back into the woods to begin his walk. Now, while he knew vaguely what direction he had to go, he didn’t know exactly where the pond was. There wasn’t a path to it and he wasn’t very familiar with this area.

Unlike his brothers, Lloyd hadn’t taken a teaching position at the school. He was a kid himself after all, so he wasn’t really qualified to be a teacher. On top of that, people had started demanding his presence at various events and it had seemed rude to decline. They also said it was good for morale and whatnot after the Ultimate Battle and he could kinda get that.

What he didn’t get was why _he_ was the one who kept getting invited to things. Yes, he’d been the one who’d defeated the Overlord in the end, but he never would have made it that far without his family. Heck, he would have been a homeless little snot if they hadn’t taken him in at the beginning and that was only the tip of the iceberg. He was very aware that he’d been a brat when they first got their hands on him.

Even him being able to defeat the Overlord was only because of his powers. If one of his brothers had gotten the golden power instead of him, they all would have been able to do it too. Better than he had. He’d messed up more than any of them.

Lloyd sighed, pulling his jacket tighter around him. Why did he always end up thinking about this stuff? He was supposed to be winding down. 

He pushed his numerous nagging doubts from his mind, choosing instead to focus on the scenery around him.

It had started to snow lightly. Intricate patterns of ice floated down weightlessly from the sky, each flake swirling and dancing on the wind. Shafts of light illuminated the sparkly white scene. 

It was quiet, the only sounds coming from the crunching of snow beneath his feet. Glittering snowflakes fell soundlessly, taking their time before reaching their destined resting place, enveloping everything in a calm that was comforting in its own special way. 

Lloyd relaxed, taking it all in with a sense of wonder. As much as he loved forests when they had their lush greenery, there was a quality that the snow gave it that couldn’t be recreated any other way. 

He ended up wandering around a bit before he finally stumbled onto the pond. It had been nice. Peaceful.

The pond had frozen over except for the part by the waterfall. It did break the silence some, but not in annoying way. It was like the patter of rain on a roof, a pleasant background sound.

It had only been forty-five minutes since he began his walk. He hadn’t come straight here, but if he went in a straight line he calculated that it would probably take him about twenty- five minutes to walk back. So he had some time to kill. 

Scanning the area, he spotted a suitable branch. He _could_ just sit on a rock, but he preferred sitting somewhere high up. He’d climbed trees all the time as a kid, sometimes for fun, sometimes to hide. Most people were too scared to follow if you went high enough. Lloyd wasn’t scared of heights. Safe heights, at least. Any sane person would be scared of falling to their death. 

He scampered up the tree, quickly testing the branches for sturdiness as he went, before settling on the preselected branch. He leaned his back against the trunk and surveyed his surroundings. This spot gave him a good view of the area and was plenty comfortable, so there was no need to try a new spot.

Tiny icicles lined the branch above him. He reached out and tapped one thoughtfully. Might as well. This was good weather for it. 

Activating his ice element, he began to carefully craft a small ice sculpture. Lloyd only used one finger to construct the figurine. This was an exercise he’d used to do with Zane when he’d first started learning to control the element of ice. Back then they’d been much simpler than the dragon he was attempting to make now. You had to be totally in control, increasing and decreasing the amount of ice you output and useing laser-like focus to form the right shapes.

He’d become pretty proficient at it after all this time and it didn’t take as much effort as it once had. It was fun, the only problem was they melted afterwards. Because of this, Lloyd didn’t make these ice sculptures that often and used his normal art supplies when he wanted to create something. But it was fun to do every once and a while and it was good for keeping in practice. 

He’d head back and check up on things when he was done.

_Some Time Earlier…_

Waiting sucked.

He didn’t care what all those old, wise proverbs about patience said. It _sucked_.

Kai had been watching the road leading to the garage for _hours_ waiting for Lloyd to come back. He’d tried to make it more bearable by checking in on his many fans from various social media sites, but it didn’t seem to make time pass much faster and he eventually got bored of it. As important as keeping his fans updated was, it wasn’t what he wanted to be doing right now. He _wanted_ to confront Lloyd about what was bothering him. And Lloyd- was taking- _forever_.

And, okay, sure, most of the others weren’t back yet either, but _they_ didn’t give Kai any reason to suspect they were purposely avoiding him.

Kai was seething with pent up frustration as he paced back and forth in front of the window he’d chosen as his lookout. He was long past rehearsing what he would say in his head. Damn it, he’d wanted to talk to Lloyd before the movie, but his little brother was probably dragging his feet at a snail’s pace so that he could show up at the last minute and then blow him off. It was probably the reason he’d suggested they all go Christmas shopping in the first place.

And this little game Lloyd was playing wasn’t just frustrating, Kai was legitimately starting to worry. Lloyd had overexaggerated little problems in his head before and it had lead him to some crazy, completely unnecessary extremes. This didn’t seem as bad as some of the stuff in the past, but it did nothing to improve his confidence. _Lloyd_ was avoiding his _family_ at _Christmas_. It couldn’t be just from embarrassment at not knowing a few of the holiday’s customs like he’d originally suspected. No, it had to be something bigger. But what?

“Hey, Kai?” Jay’s head poked out from around the corner. “Have you seen the remote?”

“No,” Kai replied irritably, not pausing in his pacing.

Taking in the spiky haired ninja’s touchy mood and rapid pacing, Jay nervously looked over his shoulder before stepping into the room fully. “Um, what are you doing?” he asked. 

Kai hesitated for a moment, considering divulging his worries about Lloyd’s strange behavior. No, he’d try to get Lloyd to talk himself first. He’d only get the others involved if Lloyd refused to cooperate. “I’m waiting for Lloyd to get back,” he informed him, finally stopping his pacing and glancing out the window again.

“Oh,” Jay said, tilting his head a little, though he looked a lot less nervous now. “He isn’t back already? I could’ve sworn I heard his bike earlier while I was out by the shed. Why are you waiting for him?”

Kai perked up at that. He’d heard Lloyd’s bike? Interesting. Very interesting. 

Lloyd’s vehicle sounded distinctly different from everyone else’s’, mainly because everyone else had some form of car that they used. It would be a pretty weird thing to mishear, even for Jay. Especially since they were the only ones out here at the moment. 

“I just want to ask him about something,” Kai said flippantly. 

Jay looked puzzled. “Why don’t you just, y’know, text him or something?”

“Because I want to talk to him in person,” Kai retorted shortly. Why was Jay so incredibly nosy? He cast one last glance out the window before turning around and leaving the room. 

“Er, okay,” Jay said, mystified. Then, under his breath, “Still don’t know where the remote is.”

Ignoring Jay’s muttering (he was probably the one who’d lost it in the first place), Kai went to the laundry room to grab his freshly warmed snow clothes from the drier. He threw them on quickly, then headed back downstairs, only stopping to shove on his snowboots.

As soon as he opened the door, an icy wall of air slammed into him. With a longsuffering sigh, he began to trudge in the direction of the shed. It was times like these that Kai really, really missed his powers.

It wasn’t that he _disliked_ snow. It was just cold and wet and slippery and made getting around so much harder. So it wasn’t that he disliked snow, it could just be very annoying. Sure, the games you could play with it were fun, but if you weren’t using it for that purpose it just made everything uncomfortable.

Kai, being the genius that he was, took a slightly longer route to the shed, one that past the garage, just in case. There was nothing by the building itself, but once he’d started nearing the forest, Bingo! Footprints. They were half filled in by the fresh snow and were a bit hard to see against the white that was everything right now, but they were undoubtedly footprints. Now all he had to do was put his master tracking skills to use. 

They had to be Lloyd’s, no one else was crazy enough to walk around in snow this deep. Not even Zane. Kai groaned at the thought of fighting through the snow as he tried to track his troublesome little brother down. And since it was Lloyd, he probably hadn’t stayed on any path, not that he would have been able to see it anyway. Kai already knew he was somehow going to manage to step into every bush and unexpected dip between him and Lloyd. The Golden ninja had probably managed through some miracle not to step on anything. He didn’t get how that worked.

But Kai the _fire_ ninja dammit, powers or no powers, and he wasn’t going to back down and turn tail because of some _snow_. His pride rejected the mere thought.

It took forever.

Following Lloyd’s trail, which made no sense whatsoever by the way, was hard. It zigzagged through the treacherous terrain in a random path that convinced him that Lloyd had no idea where he was going. The tracking itself wasn’t the hard part, Lloyd had obviously made no attempt to hide his footprints. There were ways he could have made tracking him more difficult if he had tried, but he must have assumed no one would come looking for him in here.

Because really, why would Lloyd come here? It made zero sense. If he’d wanted to hide, he could have laid low in some town. Indoors. But no, he’d decided to go on an insane hike in an unfamiliar forest that was buried in a literal mountain of snow. It was stuff like this that led him question his little brother’s sanity from time to time.

And Kai did fall into bushes. More than once.

Kai had been starting to wonder if Lloyd had had any plan at all when he’d come in here when he finally reached the end of the trail. The pond was frozen because of course it was, because it was freezing and not even his layers of winter clothes gave him any heat. He didn’t know if Lloyd had planned to come here from the start or if he’d just happened upon it and decided to take a rest, but none of that mattered now because the journey was finally, _finally_ over. 

Lloyd was casually lying on a big branch about twenty- five feet off the ground. He seemed focused on making something with his ice powers and was still oblivious to the fact that Kai was there.

He stood in the snow, staring up at Lloyd’s perch as he shifted through several possible witty opening lines. Tragically, he didn’t get to use any of them because in his seconds of hesitation Lloyd realized he was no longer alone.

The kid jolted upright, fumbling with the ice in his hands, almost dropping it as he did. His eyes widened in disbelief as he peered down at him through the branches. Kai had to hold back a smirk of amusement at the totally surprised reaction that almost made up for his trek. Almost, but not quite. The success of his mission was the only thing that would totally satisfy him.

“Kai?!” Lloyd gaped, confusion dancing in his eyes, “W-what are you doing here?!” He was half shouting due to the distance between them.

Looking for you. Kai knew that answer wouldn’t go over well though, at least not right off the bat. “What are you doing here?” he mirrored back, also having to raise his voice.

Lloyd’s surprise vanished and was replaced with a neutral facade. Well, he hadn’t been expecting an up front confession anyway. “I went for a walk.”

An innocent enough answer. Kai might even have believed it if Lloyd hadn’t hidden his bike somewhere, giving away that he wasn’t just out for a pleasant stroll. “Well, I went for a walk too.” Which was obviously a lie and Lloyd would know it was a lie.

Lloyd snorted in disbelief. “ _You_ went for a walk? In this weather? Yeah right.”

Kai was getting tired of having to yell everything. There was also no way he could have the conversation he wanted to have with Lloyd so far above him. “Could you come down?” he shouted.

Lloyd blinked down at him for a second, then nodded, “Oh, yeah, sure. One sec.” There was a green blur and suddenly Lloyd was on the last branch and jumping to the ground beside him, the snow cushioning the impact. 

The first thing that caught Kai’s eye was the ice sculpture Lloyd had clutched in his hands. Now that he could see it up close, he realized that it was an impressive ice dragon, intricately designed. The whole thing measured about a foot high. It stood on all fours, wings majestically spread. It had all of its claws, spines, and horns which Kai had to guess where hard to make, being so small and thin. Each body part was perfectly proportioned. The most impressive part though had to be the head. He must have used another piece of ice to carve the eyes. The mouth was open and full of tiny, sharp teeth and even a tiny forked tongue. And since the whole thing was made of ice, it glittered in the light. It was perfect and a huge step up from the exercises Lloyd had used to do with Zane. 

He recalled that time fondly, back before the Tomorrow’s Tea had given Lloyd his growth spurt. Back then, Lloyd had gotten frustrated when he couldn’t form a perfect sphere or when his attempt at a pyramid came out lopsided. He’d improved leaps and bounds since then and this dragon was physical proof.

Kai would be lying if he said he wasn’t proud.

“Wow, Lloyd, that’s awesome!” he praised.

For a moment Lloyd seemed to not understand what Kai was referring to, then glanced down at the dragon in his hands. “Oh, thanks. I just finished it, like, thirty seconds ago.” He simultaneously looked both pleased and embarrassed.

“How long did that take you?” Kai queried, leaning in closer to get a better look.

Lloyd gave a shrug. “I dunno. Forty, Fifty minutes.” 

Kai in no way considered himself an artist, art was one of the few things he wasn’t great at, but he knew this was impressive. However, it wouldn’t distract him from his mission. He let out a whistle and straightened back up. “Maybe we can use it as a Christmas decoration.” Segway made.

He didn’t miss the way Lloyd tensed up nervously at the mention of Christmas. This had to be handled with a certain level of tact. Not exactly his area of expertise, but he wasn’t angry over this so his chances for success were already higher than normal. 

The cold ninja cleared away some of the snow covering one of the larger rocks and sat down. “I guess this place is pretty scenic. Freezing, but…” And it did look pretty, but again freezing. After his trek through the forest, he was kind of sick of snow.

He sent up a silent prayer of thanks when Lloyd sat down next to him. “Jay’s been gathering movie options,” he said, trying to drum up a conversation. “Right now, it’s looking like everyone’s leaning towards Rudolph. I know everyone’s seen it like a thousand times, but it’s a classic and probably the least creepy of the old stop motion Christmas movies.” Those things hadn’t seemed creepy when he was a kid, but now that the was older- disturbing. 

Lloyd mumbled an agreement, but he kept his eyes down and seemed to shrink in on himself a little. Kai frowned. Had he said something wrong? He ran back through what he’d just said, but couldn’t find anything that might cause such a reaction. The only overarching connection he could think of was Christmas, but that still didn’t make sense to him.

By this point, Kai was pretty sure Lloyd wasn’t going to open up without being asked directly. He sighed and turned to face his little brother fully. “Lloyd?”

Lloyd gave him a quick glance, then returned to studying the dragon in his hands. “Yeah?” he asked sounding apprehensive.

“Look, I know somethings been bothering you. Could you just tell me what it is? I’m sure whatever it is, I can help. You don’t want whatever it is to ruin your Christmas” Kai pleaded, trying to appeal to Lloyd’s reason. He didn’t want to say whatever is was wasn’t a big deal because he honestly didn’t know what the problem was and he didn’t want to make Lloyd any more defensive than he already was.

Lloyd turned his face so he was now looking away from Kai even more. “Nothing’s wrong…” he protested weakly. 

Kai valiantly resisted the urge to grab Lloyd and force him to look at him directly. He wasn’t trying to run and he wasn’t even trying to make his arguments seem convincing anymore, so he probably wouldn’t have to push much harder. It was very likely Lloyd felt guilty that he’d made Kai track him through the forest and he also had no real excuse to run away now. He was trapped.

“Then why have you been acting so weird? You’ve been avoiding everyone lately. Did we do something wrong?” That last one was a bit low, but it was a tactic that often worked with Lloyd. 

And it did the trick. Lloyd whipped around to face him, eyes wide, “No! No, it’s not- it’s…” Lloyd sighed, a look of defeat on his face. Kai could almost see the fight bleed out of him. “It’s stupid.”

“Great!” Kai encouraged, “Then it’ll be easy to fix.”

There was moment of silence as Lloyd fiddled with his dragon in nervous anticipation. “It’s just… I’ve never, done this before,” he murmured quietly, as if he was telling some awful secret. Kai didn’t get it.

“Done what?” he asked.

“Y’know, Christmas,” Lloyd clarified, his face reddening and Kai knew it wasn’t from the cold.

It took a minute for Kai to comprehend what that meant. “Wait, are you saying you’ve never done any Christmas things _at all_?!” Kai gasped. Lloyd nodded sheepishly. 

How was that possible? “Did they just not do Christmas at Darkley’s?” he guessed. Maybe his assumption of them just having a twisted, evil version of Christmas was wrong and they’d thought the holiday was too good to be acknowledged. 

Lloyd shook his head. “No... They had Christmas. It was weirder than what normal people do, but they had it.”

Kai tipped his head to the side, thoroughly confused. Lloyd had literally just said he’d never done anything for Christmas, but then he said his school did have it. “Did they just not let you join in?” It was a school full of evil and evil-in-training so he could see everyone just being huge jerks.

Lloyd shifted in his seat. “Not exactly. They weren’t around so…” He gave another shrug, looking like he wished the ground would to open up and swallow him whole to get him out of this.

“Not around? Did the other kids all go home for the holidays?” The thought struck him like a jolt of Jay’s electricity. Of course the other kids had gone home. But Lloyd would have had nowhere to go. His dad was trapped in the underworld and he would have still thought his mother had abandoned him. He couldn’t imagine how awful it must have been for him; watching all the other kids go back to their families, sucky as those families might be, while he was left alone in a school with a bunch of sadistic teachers. 

At least Kai had always had Nya for the holidays. He’d missed his parents, he always would, but he’d still had his sister. He pictured a sad, baby Lloyd watching the other kids leave from a lonely doorway and his heart constricted. He knew Lloyd didn’t like being pitied. But he also knew he didn’t like feeling miserable either.

“Well,” Lloyd said, hesitantly, “it wasn’t just the kids.”

Kai quirked an eyebrow quizzically, before understanding dawned on him. Horror spread over his face. There was no way. “They didn’t just- leave you alone in an empty school, did they?!” There was evil and then there was this. 

Lloyd actually seemed less nervous now. “Well, not when I was really little. But once I hit six, they decided I was old enough to not need a babysitter anymore. Future evil rulers needed to learn how to take care of themselves.” How could he say that so casually?

Kai’s confusion fell away into anger. “Six?! They left you alone in that death school for weeks since you were six?!” Those abusive, careless, idiotic assholes! He could feel his blood start to burn and he knew if he still had his powers, something would be on fire right now.

“I mean, I was fine,” Lloyd said. “And it was kinda nice not having to worry about the other students and teachers for a while. I also got to set up a ton of pranks before everyone got back.”

The irate ninja wasn’t even listening anymore. “That school was full of poisonous spiders! There were death traps every other thing you bump into! And they just- how could they- uurgh!” Kai stood up, unable to contain his anger while seated. He started pacing through the snow, which was hard and only made him more angry. One day, he swore he was going to hunt down the old Darkley principal and beat the crap out of him before throwing him into his thoroughly deserved prison cell. Every time Lloyd told them something new about his old school, Kai became more and more amazed by the fact that Lloyd had survived the experience. Like that motorcycle thing. But this, this was a whole new level of bad. He wanted to punch someone so bad it almost hurt.

Lloyd was watching him, looking bemused. As if didn’t understand how insanely wrong it was that that was a thing that had happened to him.

“They probably would have left someone with me if something had ever happened,” Lloyd said in what better not be an attempt at defense. “But I never got seriously hurt” Kai’s stomach fell. _Seriously_ hurt? “and I never caused any major property damage.” Kai honestly wouldn’t have cared if Lloyd had burned that whole, stupid school to the ground so long as he hadn’t gotten hurt while doing it. “And I liked not having other people around.” It almost seemed like Lloyd was trying to placate him now.

“That doesn’t matter!” Kai seethed. “You don’t leave a little kid alone like that! Especially in- How did you get food and stuff?!” Maybe Zane could help him track these assholes down. It could be a family project. Everyone would totally want in when they heard about this. Especially Lloyd’s parents.

“They left plenty of food in the kitchen,” Lloyd explained, his eyes following Kai as he moved back and forth. “And it’s not like anyone would try to come rob the place or anything. Most people were too scared to come within a mile of the place. We had a bit of a reputation.”

Kai glared at Lloyd. “You don’t do something like that,” he ground out.

“Well, yeah, it was bad,” Lloyd agreed. “But y’know, school of evil for evil. And no one wanted to stay with a bratty kid during Christmas.”

Christmas? Why was he bringing up Christmas all of a sudden? It was completely off topic and- oh. That had been what they were originally talking about, hadn’t it. Well, damn it. He’d deal with those criminals another time. He couldn’t do anything about them from here anyway. 

Kai stopped pacing and took a deep breath, pushing his anger aside as best he could. “So you were alone the entire time before, after, and during Christmas because your teachers were neglectful assholes and that’s why you’ve never celebrated the holiday before?” 

Lloyd nodded, suddenly looked much more uncomfortable. Kai ran a hand over his face in exasperated furry. “You must have been at least somewhat exposed to it though. There’s tons of Christmas stuff on tv and most places start setting up their Christmas stuff like two months in advance.” There was just no way Lloyd knew nothing.

Shame spread over Lloyd’s features and he once again broke off eye contact. Kai silently berated himself for sounding so accusing. He needed to calm down. 

“I avoided it,” Lloyd admitted quietly, “It made me… sad.”

For a minute, Kai could only stare at his baby brother. “Oh, Lloyd.” Kai went up and kneeled in front of him, wrapping his arms around him in a hug, careful not to poke himself on Lloyd’s dragon. Kai could see all too well how all the Christmas stuff must have felt like a slap in the face to a sad, lonely, young Lloyd. He’d basically been an orphan back then. An orphan in really shitty living conditions. Had Lloyd even ever received a Christmas present before?

After a moment of hesitation, Lloyd gently returned the hug. Kai held it for a few seconds more before releasing his hold. 

“But why would you hide all that?” he asked Lloyd, because that still confused him. No, Lloyd didn’t like being pitied, but he’d gone pretty far if that was all it was. “None of us would have judged you for it. We might want to give the teachers their just desserts, but we wouldn’t think any less of you. We would have just tried to speed teach you everything. It would have been fun. And your parents-“

Lloyd’s head snapped up so quickly Kai could swear he heard it crack. Horror filled his eyes and he actually looked a shade paler. “No! Kai, they can’t know! You can’t tell them, you can’t!” Lloyd begged desperately. 

Kai was completely taken aback. “Wh-?”

But Lloyd kept going. “It’s not like I’m angry at them or anything. I’m not. So they don’t need to know. There’s no reason for it. You can’t tell them.” He almost looked like he was on the verge of tears.

And suddenly it all made sense. Lloyd wasn’t trying to hide his lack of Christmas experience because of embarrassment. He was doing it because he didn’t want his parents to know that Lloyd never had a Christmas because of their absence. He was trying not to add onto the guilt they definitely already had by not letting them know their son had never celebrated a Christmas before. _That_ was the real issue and it was so, so Lloyd. Because Lloyd was incapable of ever being selfish.

He gently grabbed his panicking little brother by the shoulders. “Lloyd.” Wild eyes stared back at him. “I won’t tell them.” He could feel Lloyd physically sag with relief and his eyes shone with gratitude. “But we should tell the others.” Lloyd tensed up again.

“They’ll be able to help,” Kai assured him, “If we explain it to them, they won’t tell your parents either. You won’t have to hide from them anymore and they’ll be able to help you learn faster. We are pretty good teachers you know.”

Lloyd gave a small smile. “Jay’s a blabbermouth,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” Kai agreed, “But we’ll really stress the importance. Plus, you’ll be able to take our place and watch all those cheesy Christmas movies with him. A few every couple of days are fine, but I think he has a serious problem.”

That actually got him a laugh and Kai considered that a win. “Okay,” Lloyd said, “I’ll tell them.” He paused for a moment. “Sorry if I worried you,” he added apologetically. 

“Aww, no problem little bro,” Kai said, ruffling the kid’s hair which earned him a halfhearted eye role. He knew the kid was holding back a smile. “Now I know you’re just fine out here, but I’m freezing my butt off and I’m pretty sure the others will be back by now so…”

Lloyd stood up. “Yeah, let’s head back. You can just follow behind me. Wouldn’t want you falling into any bushes.” 

Little brat.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, that moment when you look down and realize your chapter is almost as long as all your previous chapters combined. When I first came up with this story I thought it was going to be slightly longer than a one-shot, but it just kept growing and growing. I’m glad to finally finish this story up though. I hope you all enjoy it :)

He should have just told the others from the start.

They’d all been shocked and angry (not at him, thank goodness), but they’d understood. Not only had they agreed to keep his secret, but they’d also packed the entire week with activities to help him play catch up. Lloyd was beyond grateful. His siblings were the best. Hands down, no arguments, the most amazing in all of Ninjago.

As soon as they’d become aware of Lloyd’s lack of Christmas knowhow, they’d amassed a huge list of things that he needed to do before the holiday hit. Jay especially had gotten almost scary excited. He’d gotten this look in his eyes…

One of the first things they’d tackled was baking Christmas cookies. Initially, he’d been confused, not understanding why it was different from making your everyday, average, not Christmas cookies. Turns out, it wasn’t much different, but the festivities to it all made it feel special. He suspected the reason they’d done this one so early on was simply because everyone wanted cookies. A decision that had his full support. 

They’d had Christmas music playing in the background the whole time, as they’d done with almost all the activities over the course of the week. The best way to learn the songs was to listen to them, after all, and it helped set the mood.

Zane, of course, had done most of the actual baking part. Lloyd and Nya had helped him since they were making so many and he’d needed a couple extra sets of hands to get it all done in time. Cole had volunteered to help too (possibly as a joke, it could be hard to tell sometimes), but well, they weren’t crazy. The kitchen still hadn’t fully recovered from last time.

Decorating the cookies was where things had really gotten interesting. Zane had purchased a mountain of supplies for them to use. Between the rainbow-colored sprinkles of various sizes and shapes, an equally colorful selection of frosting and glazes, an impressive assortment of candies, and a ton of fun choices for cookie cutters, you had the tools to make anything you could imagine.

Some of the final products had been… interesting, but fun in their own way. Some of the cookies had been masterpieces that he would honestly feel a little guilty eating. Cole hadn’t had that problem, but they’d made an obscene number of cookies to help compensate. It had gotten competitive for some people. Okay, they’d all been pretty spirited about their cookie designs, but some of them had been more intense than others. 

The pinnacle of it all though had been the gingerbread mansion.

You had to call it a mansion because house just didn’t cover it. It had started out fairly simple, but then everyone had started making suggestions.

“It should be at least three stories high,” Cole had insisted. It ended up being four. It also had six towers.

With a scrutinizing gaze, Jay had wisely observed, “It needs more candy.” They’d had to run to the store and get two more bags of candy to satisfy their needs.

“We should personalize all the windows,” Nya had suggested. They’d used sugar glass and it looked great.

“We should be in it,” Kai had said. They’d also made a dragon. It hadn’t been easy, but it had been worth it.

Zane had made many suggestions regarding the architecture. A lot of words he didn’t know the meaning of were used. Needless to say, it got really ornate.

Lloyd had put in many small details. The icicles, the roof pattern, the various architectural flourishes, stuff like that. It had taken a long time, but he’d enjoyed it, especially after all the stress and sibling dodging he’d been doing the past few days. It had been refreshing in a weird way.

The final product had been like one of those one of those cake shows on TV except instead of cake, it was a gingerbread house. Even Cole was reluctant to eat it it was so epic. They still hadn’t eaten it and it was Christmas day.

Another one of the craftier activities had been ornament making. At first, he’d only made one with Jay. It had seemed childish when he first suggested it, but Jay had insisted on needing a memento of Lloyd’s first Christmas with them. The ornament they’d made was a fancy looking steampunk snowflake made of gears that lit up with a blue light when you flicked a switch on the back. The second attempt didn’t start on fire or get caught in the tree. The first had gotten messy.

After he’d finished that little engineering art project with Jay, the others had all suddenly wanted to make an ornament with him too. Even Kai. Partially because the steampunk snowflake had turned out so cool (really cool, it had taken hours), but mostly because everyone realized they wanted their own memento.

With Cole he constructed an ornament shaped like a Christmas tree made of various polished, colored stones pooled from each of their rock collections and some sticks they painted gold. It had been a lot easier to make than working with all the little gears, but the end result was just as good and he had fun making both. Apparently, Cole had made one of these with his dad as well.

Zane had been next. They’d decided to make another snowflake, this one made by curling and gluing strips of white cardstock paper. Around fifty strips of paper had been used, and Zane had calculated how long each piece would have to be to fit the design. The design was very intricate, and it was arguably just as difficult as the steampunk. To be fair though, Jay had done most of the mechanical stuff, so maybe it wasn’t the best comparison. The ornament looked very elegant and they were both pleased with it.

Kai had been embarrassed. He’d tried not to show it, but Lloyd could tell he was nervous. The spiky haired ninja had tried way too hard to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal and his eyes had kept flicking over to the ornaments Lloyd had already made with the other three ninja.

Lloyd understood his apprehension. They were hard acts to follow and had a clear theme going. Kai had two disadvantages right from the start. 1. Not being very artistically gifted. 2. Fire isn’t exactly a Christmasy element and is therefore harder to incorporate into a Christmas ornament. On top of those things, Kai hated not winning even when there was no competition. So there was a nonexistent pressure on Kai to have his ornament be at least close in quality to the other three.

“I’m not exactly the artsiest person in the world,” Kai had admitted as they sat down at the table to begin their work.

Lloyd had shrugged, not caring in the slightest. “People call a blue dot on a black canvas art. It doesn’t been to be complicated.” He’d reached out to start grabbing the red, yellow, and orange supplies from the pile. “Besides, I’m here. You aren’t doing it alone.”

“Yeah…” Then Kai had shaken himself, steeling himself for the looming arts and crafts project, and started to help him gather the appropriate supplies. “So, any ideas?”

Now, Lloyd could have devised something very complicated and fancy and led Kai through it, but he didn’t want the older teen to feel like he wasn’t contributing or have him getting frustrated when he messed something up. So Lloyd went with the simpler approach.

They’d started with a clear, glass star shaped ornament, since stars are just giant balls of fire in the sky, and built on that. First, they covered the inside lightly with glue, then dumped in a tube of sparkles. Unfortunately, Kai had underestimated how fast they were going to spill out of the tube, so a lot ended up on the table. Which consequently ended up on them. Kai had been thoroughly grossed out. And it had been such a pain wash it off because, somehow, even though you think you got it all, a couple minutes later you look down and realize that dang it there’s more on you. Once it’s out in the world, it’s never truly gone, only moved from one surface to another.

It only took a couple minutes for the glue to dry, so by the time they’d washed up, they were able to immediately move on to the next step. The red, orange, and yellow paints were poured into the shell and spread around until the whole thing was lightly coated. Then they had to wait for that to dry.

Naturally, Kai had gotten antsy, so they’d raided the cookie stash which eventually led to them getting into a discussion about how weird some of the lyrics to ‘Santa Clause is Coming to Town’ were. Because ‘he sees you when you’re sleeping’? That was creepy no matter what way you looked at it. The whole song was riddled with questionable material. It was catchy though.

When the paint had finally dried, they’d stuffed some shiny yellow and red tissue paper into the center along with a light strong enough to give it a glow, but weak enough that it wouldn’t set anything on fire. If they’d been able to figure out a way to get a real fire inside their ornament Lloyd totally would have done it. Sadly, it was impossible. The light touch sensitive though, so that was neat. After a quick test to make sure bumping the ornament actually controlled the light, they’d screwed the lid back on.

Kai was actually pretty happy with it and it definitely gave a fire vibe while still keeping with the Christmas theme. So a win all around. Plus, even though Kai didn’t say it out loud, Lloyd knew he’d secretly enjoyed making it. When they put it next to the other three, it looked like it belonged there with them.

Obviously, Nya’s ornament didn’t have an elemental theme. Which meant they could do anything. Nya had come up with the clever idea to use liquids of different densities and colors to make their ornament. They’d used a simple, spherical glass ornament, then filled it with liquids of different densities that they dyed their favorite colors, blue and green. It was cool because even though it still moved like water, the horizontal stripes of color didn’t mix together. He’d felt smart while making it. Scientific.

It hadn’t all been arts and crafts of course.

He hadn’t watched _all_ the Christmas movies, he couldn’t have done that even if he did nothing but watch Christmas movies until Christmas day there were so many of them. But he had watched the ones that, after a series of heated debates amongst his siblings, were declared the must-see holiday movies.

Lloyd had liked all of them. Even the claymation ones, which were kinda weird and creepy at times but still had a certain charm to them. He’d especially enjoyed ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. Agonizing over past mistakes and what-ifs was something he knew all too well and he’d found the film very relatable.

They’d watched two a day, sometimes doing other things while watching, but all six of them were always there. His parents had joined them when they watched Rudolph. Lloyd had been a mixture of nervous and excited at first and everyone but his mom had been a depressing uneasy awkward. But as the movie got going everyone settled in and by the end all the earlier awkwardness was forgotten.

That movie had been what opened the way between him and his dad. It was an awful thing to realize your dad was so scared of upsetting you that he won’t even try to approach you. When the movie’s credits had come to an end, and Lloyd hadn’t immediately ducked out, his dad had gotten this hopeful expression on his face that had sent burning guilt throughout Lloyd’s entire body. Before he’d approached Lloyd though, he’d exchanged this look with Kai that made Lloyd suspect that they’d been talking about him behind his back. Which was great! A little worrisome, but that meant they had talked with some degree of civility and success, so it was a win as far as Lloyd was concerned. He’d worry about overprotective gang-ups later. 

After that, Lloyd made sure to spend more time with his dad (and his mom too), which was something he’d wanted to do anyway so it wasn’t hard, but he still was careful to avoid anything that might let his lack of Christmases slip. It had been easier than he’d thought it would be. It had never occurred to him that maybe his dad wouldn’t want to talk about it either, but they both seemed to be avoiding their problems. Leave the past in the past and all that.

Out of all things they’d done though, and they’d done a lot, one activity stood out as his favorite. Yes, the baking, crafting, cardmaking, decorating, ugly sweater shopping (the ugly was a totally undeserved adjective. Lloyd _loved_ how over the top they were), movie viewing, storytelling, and a few traditions that weren’t mainstream, just things the others did with their families, were all great, but none of them had given him that warm, happy feeling quite like his favorite.

Charity work has always been his favorite kind of fan event. So it was no surprise that he’d enjoyed the Christmas charity events.

Three groups had approached him for three different charity events. He’d said yes to all three of them. If there was one thing Lloyd absolutely _hated_ , it was turning down someone who asked him for help. He just couldn’t do it. Thankfully, only three had asked because any more and it would have started to seriously conflict with his family time.

The events had mostly consisted of toy drives for children in need and meal making for poor families. Lloyd didn’t know if his being there made people more willing to donate for some reason, but even if it hadn’t he’d helped sort and wrap gifts and make the meals. So he’d been helping either way. And the kids had been thrilled to see him. Their faces had lit up in a way Lloyd wasn’t sure he deserved and he’d talked to them, handed out candy canes, signed autographs, given high fives. Kids were so much easier than adults. Even if his presence hadn’t increased donations, making those kids happy had made it worth his time.

Still hoped it had somehow made more donations though.

His siblings hadn’t gotten the same level of recognition as he had (which was ridiculous. He’d be nothing and nowhere without them), but some of the kids had known who they were. And if the kids hadn’t known who they were at the beginning, they definitely knew who they were by the end.

He’d always had at least three of his siblings accompany him to each event. Cole and Jay hadn’t made it a couple times because they’d been doing things with their parents, but they’d each gone to at least two. It was a relief to have them there because those types of things were always easier when you were there with someone you knew instead of surrounded by a crowd of complete strangers. And they’d definitely livened the events up a lot. Their showing off had probably drawn in more people than him being there had.

After all the excitement from the week leading up to Christmas, a part of Lloyd had been anxious about the actual Christmas day. It sounded silly, but if you think about it, how can one day compete with a whole week? There were the gifts, but the week had been full of gifts. Maybe not the same kind of gifts, but gifts nonetheless. With all the buildup, what if Christmas day didn’t live up to expectations?

He should have known better than to worry.

Christmas morning (aka the crack of dawn) Lloyd had been startled awake by an overenergetic Jay leaping onto his bed. Through bleary eyes he’d seen an equally groggy Cole watching them from the doorway, looking apologetic, but resigned. It had been some small comfort knowing he wasn’t suffering alone. Lloyd couldn’t comprehend how anyone could be so full of energy so early he wouldn’t even call it a morning yet. He especially couldn’t understand why Jay had deemed it necessary that they all had to wake up at this absurd hour when they weren’t even opening gifts until after dinner.

The proposition had initially sparked outrage, mostly fueled by Kai and Jay, but once the reasoning behind the suggestion had been explained it had died down. It had been Nya who had put the idea forward, arguing that if they did gifts in the morning they’d spend all day playing around with their new stuff instead of doing Christmas things, and this being Lloyd’s first Christmas that should be the primary focus. They could start using their gifts the next day. Lloyd had felt bad that they were disrupting their usual Christmas schedule for his sake, but they’d all assured him that it wasn’t a big deal and that they wanted to do it this way. They’d seemed genuinely excited, so Lloyd figured they really must not mind that much.

So they’d had a somewhat unconventional Christmas morning.

Zane had started being productive almost right away, putting his culinary skills to work making breakfast. The rest of them, minus Jay, had stumbled around like zombies, grumbling about being woken up so early. A totally valid complaint. Lloyd had been walking around with his eyes still effectively closed. That hadn’t lasted long though because Jay had been hellbent on getting them just as awake as he was.

Through a series of events Lloyd couldn’t fully recall, they’d ended up going outside and making face down snow angels in the new layer of freshly fallen snow. It had been miserable for a few moments, but Lloyd had to admit it did the trick.

They’d all turned on Jay immediately, of course. Once they were more aware of what was happening around them and realized, yes, they were up and in the snow at an outrageously early hour, a pact had been made to punish Jay for his transgressions. The energetic ninja had clearly not been expecting the sudden turn of events and was thus unprepared for the onslaught of snowballs hurling his way. The dreary early morning mood had quickly been replaced with the rush of an all-out snowball fight. All of this occurred before the sun had fully peeked out over the hills and before they had changed out of their pajamas. He loved it.

The adults, being more sensible, hadn’t woken up until the meal was done about an hour later. Still early, but not insanely early. They’d been bemused to see them all standing there, wide awake and in snow soaked pajamas. The dads chuckled over it. The moms had scolded them for going out without the proper garments and sent them up to change into dry clothes. The whole thing had been pretty funny.

There had never been any verbal agreement as to what they were going to wear, but you’d think it was planned when they all stepped back out into the hallway sporting their ‘ugly’ Christmas sweaters. All of which matched their color scheme. It had taken quite a bit of searching to find Jay and Cole’s since they’d decided not to cheat by using the internet. Red, green, and white had been easy and Nya was free from the almost obligatory color coordination the rest of them had so she just went with red, possibly to match her brother.

Lloyd’s was fairly simple. A forest green long-sleeved sweater with a white snowflake pattern on the sleeves and along the bottom of the sweater, and a Rudolph face in the center. He’d loved it the instant he’d laid eyes on it. It satisfied his love for animals, the color green, and Christmas all at once, and was slightly over the top while still looking stylish. As an added bonus, it was also super soft.

Kai’s was way more complicated. It was the same shade of red as his uniform and was also long-sleeved. They were all long-sleeved, it was winter. It was embellished with a crisscross pattern of colorful Christmas lights that glowed in the dark. (Thinking on it now, that was the one thing that could make Lloyd’s sweater better. His Rudolph’s nose didn’t glow. An oversight on the manufacturer’s part.) White pompoms hung from the ends of the sleeves and at the bottom of the sweater were lines of white beads sewn in columns. The sleeves themselves had patches of large, round Christmas ornaments. If there was a contest, Kai’s would definitely win for most outlandish. Surprising, considering how much Kai valued his public image, but he’d made it very clear he was never wearing it outside the house and he’d forced Jay to act as if he were the one buying it when they were at the store.

The sweater Jay actually got for himself was dark blue and was themed around one of the snow planets from the Prince Donegan series. It was crazy how Christmasy something could look even when it was covered with spaceships, robots, and alien lifeforms. It was the snowflake pattern that did it. Lloyd had been seriously tempted to get one too, but he knew he had to limit himself to one because otherwise he was going to end up with way more than one. And none of them were in green. Blue was merely his second favorite color.

Cole’s was far more down to earth. Black and very structured. It had rows of patterns from the bottom to the top. Some of the patterns included: red Christmas trees, white snowflakes, white reindeer, and red zigzags. He was the only one to have nothing decorating his sleeves. It was very Cole.

Zane’s was white and covered in layers of white snowflakes with a light blue undertone. There was no pattern and Lloyd had yet to find two snowflakes that were the same, which was impressive on the developer’s part. Impractical, but impressive.

Nya’s was red with green on the ends and around the collar. It had candy cane striped sleeves and the center was a Christmas tree surrounded by a pattern of white polka dots. Like her brother’s, the lights on the Christmas tree glowed in the dark.

They were a festive and colorful assortment and the adults had said as much when they returned downstairs. Lloyd knew they were holding back laughter, but it was the good kind. It had been a good start to the day that was only made better by Zane’s amazing breakfast feast.

After that, everything had speed up. There was never a dull moment. Family fun was had and memories were made. Some inside around a fireplace, some outside in the snow. Somebody had always been recording the events on their phone or camera. Lloyd kept close to his parents throughout it all. Because as great as all of it was, having his parents there with him was the best part. During their day to day lives, he didn’t get to see them as much as he would like, all of them being so busy. Lloyd hoped everything would settle down soon so they could be together more. Between his dad building his monastery, his mom’s archeological work, and Lloyd’s golden ninja duties, both to his fans and Ninjago, there wasn’t a ton of time for them to just… hang out and be a family. It wasn’t that Lloyd never saw them, but he hadn’t had them for most of his young life and he wanted all the time with them he could get. He cherished every moment he had with them.

And that led to the present. The sun had laid to rest for the night and the stars had risen to take its place. The time for exchanging gifts had arrived and they were all gathered around the Christmas tree.

The tree had turned out great. They’d ended up splitting the tree between themselves, so each of them had decorated their part with their own style and colors. The ornaments they’d made with Lloyd were prominently displayed in each of their sections. Maybe that was a theme, maybe it wasn’t, but it was very representative of their team. They were different, but they worked well together.

Lloyd admired the pine from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside where his dad was seated on one of the couches. He would have sat directly beside him, but there was going to be a lot of moving around as the gifts were opened. He could wait until they were done.

Around him, everyone started shifting, reaching to grab the gifts they wanted to exchange first. They’d decided on the ‘I give you my gift then you give me mine’ method. There were a lot of people, so it would have taken a long time go one by one. Lloyd had secretly been relieved with the decision. It made the exchange more personal and also kept it from feeling like everyone was judging your gifts from over your shoulder. He wasn’t worried about most of his gifts, but two of them made his stomach flutter nervously.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to start out with those two. Kai crossed the room and shoved his gift into Lloyd’s lap before he could so much as twitch.

“You can open mine first,” Kai asserted.

Lloyd stared down at the red box, his brain taking a second to process what was happening. Was he supposed to give Kai his gift first or was he supposed to open it right away? Slightly panicking, Lloyd reached into the pile of gifts beside him and pulled out his gift for Kai. He handed the small, green, snowflake studded box to the older teen, who didn’t seem to notice Lloyd’s awkwardness, or at least he was pretending not to notice.

Kai tore off the wrapping paper to reveal the videogame he’d been hinting (telling) then he’d wanted for months now. Lloyd had made an agreement with Cole that Lloyd would get the main game and Cole would give him the DLC. “Thanks squirt,” Kai beamed. “Now open mine.”

Oh, right. Lloyd hurriedly unwrapped his gift and removed the lid. Inside he found the videogame he had been wanting, the one with all the mythical creatures. He had his mouth half open to thank Kai for the gift, but then realized there was more in the box. Reaching through the tissue paper, his hand hit something soft.

It was a green dragon plushie. It was cute, but not in a girly way. Lloyd blinked down at it for a second because it was a stuffed animal and those were kind of for little kids (sure Jay still had a couple here and there, but that was different.). But he didn’t not like it. He rationalized that it was a dragon and was basically his mascot, so it was an exception.

“Thanks,” Lloyd said, placing the gifts carefully beside him. He was going to name the dragon Farore.

“Merry Christmas, Lloyd,” Kai said before moving off towards his sister.

Jay was the next to approach him. This time Lloyd had more time to prepare, so he already had Jay’s gift in hand by the time he reached him. The blue ninja bounced to a stop in front of him, then flopped down into a crisscross position. “Here ya go, Lloyd,” Jay said, cheerily handing him his blue and star patterned gift box. It was pretty thin.

Lloyd took the gift, switching it out with his gift for Jay. Unlike Kai, Jay didn’t immediately begin to unwrap his gift, instead looking at Lloyd expectantly.

Understanding the cue, Lloyd did his gift first. His eyes widened with disbelief as he pulled out a pristine, still in the wrapper first edition Prince Donegan comic, the fourth one from the first series and the only one he was still missing from his first series collection. He couldn’t even fathom how Jay got his hands on it, he’d been searching for one everywhere. A spike of anxiety ran through him as he tried to guess how much this could have cost. “How in the world did you get your hands on this?” he breathed.

“Oh, I have my ways,” Jay said, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“But I’ve been looking for one everywhere,” Lloyd protested incredulously. “All the ones on the internet were, like, hundreds of dollars.”

Jay must have seen the worry in his eyes because he hurried to say, “Oh, it didn’t cost that much. I got it in a special deal. You have to be a thrifty shopper. Honestly, I just got really lucky.” 

Lloyd relaxed minutely. Thank goodness for that. Still couldn’t have been easy for him. “Thanks,” he said fervently, “with this I have first editions of the entire first series.”

Jay grinned widely. “Yeah, I knew you were missing that one. I’m glad I could help you out.” He glanced down at the box in his hand. “Guess I should open mine now.”

Jay tore off the wrapping paper, not quite as rabidly as Kai had, and removed the lid. The box was filled with Jay’s favorite kinds of candy and on top lay an envelope. Jay picked it up, looking curious, and opened the envelope, shaking out its contents.

Jay’s eyes lit up. “A ticket to the new Prince Donegan movie? Oh, sweet! The movie reviewers are giving it great ratings and it’s based around the second arc which is like one of the best arcs.” He glanced up at Lloyd. “But you already knew that. Hey, wait a minute.” Jay peered at the ticket closer. He looked back at Lloyd confused. “I think this ticket is wrong. This says it’s for two days before the release date.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd confirmed, reaching his arm up to scratch behind his neck. “Conventions aren’t always all awful. I sort of met some of the people who worked on the movie and they were fans and when I told them how much I loved the series, they gave me two early access tickets.” As much as a pain as fame could be, it did have its perks. And it wasn’t like he’d accepted money or something, really it didn’t cost them anything, so he considered it an acceptable gift.

The shock displayed on Jay’s face was priceless. “Seriously?” he squealed. “Lloyd, that is so awesome! We’ll be some of the first people to see it!”

Lloyd nodded, somewhat embarrassed. It wasn’t like he’d done a lot to get the tickets. They’d basically just handed to him. Jay’s gift had probably taken a lot more work on his part. And Lloyd was going to the movie too, but it was always better to go to a movie with someone else who was passionate about the film. “There’ll be some other people there who got early access from family and contests and stuff, so it won’t be just us, but I guess there’s going to be a lot of fanfare around it.”

“Lloyd, you are the best!” Jay proclaimed, placing the ticket carefully back into the box before throwing himself onto Lloyd for a two second hug. Once he pulled back, he glanced over his shoulder towards his parents. “We’re going to talk a lot more about this later, a _lot_ more, but if I get going now we could be here for hours and I still need to give my parents their gifts.”

“Yeah.” Lloyd nodded in agreement. “I need to put this comic somewhere safe before I keep going. I’m not taking any chances.”

“I know how you feel,” Jay said, picking up his box as he stood.

As Jay moved off, Lloyd got up and went to one of the nearby drawers and placed the comic inside it. Safe and sound.

Cole was waiting for him when he came back, holding a black gift box with white reindeers on it. Lloyd slid back into his spot, picking up his gift for Cole as he went.

“Here ya go, Lloyd,” Cole said, placing the medium sized in front of him.

“Thanks, here’s yours.” Lloyd unwrapped the box to find it filled with candy and a cd case. Just seeing the candy gave him a tingly feeling of excitement. All of the gifts he’d gotten so far were great, but candy… well, Lloyd loved candy. He had a sweet tooth. No shame. He popped one of the candies into his mouth because why not and took a closer look at the cd. It was a mixtape of all of Lloyd’s favorite rock songs and bands. Lloyd liked classical music too, especially the kind from video games, but rock was _amazing_. Put an electric guitar into a song and that song automatically becomes more awesome. It was just a rule of the universe.

It was a bit of an ironic gift considering what Lloyd had gotten for Cole. Or maybe not ironic, he was probably using that word wrong, but he’d gotten Cole music too. It wasn’t a mixtape, but Cole liked all the songs in the album. There was also one other part to his gift. Yet another convention gained gift, though he’d won a lottery contest for this one.

It took Cole a few seconds to read through the certificate. “Free Master Chen’s noodles for a year?!”

Lloyd nodded. “You get one free meal and one free appetizer each week.” It wouldn’t exactly fill Cole’s bottomless stomach, but free food was always a good thing and he knew Chen’s was one of Cole’s favorite restaurants.

“Sweet, thanks Lloyd,” Cole said enthusiastically. “This from one of your conventions?” Lloyd nodded. “Man, I wish I could tag along with you to some of those. I like teaching fine, and the kids are usually great, but you get to do some fun stuff.”

Not Lloyd’s definition of fun, but there were definitely worse things. And even though he would prefer staying with his family and not going to so many events, he didn’t want to be a teacher. He wasn’t even close to qualified for the job anyway. “You guys are always welcome to come with,” Lloyd told him.

“Thanks,” Cole said. His eyes moved to look at something over Lloyd’s shoulder. “Looks like my turn’s up. Merry Christmas, Lloyd.”

Lloyd returned the phrase and turned to see Nya approaching him from behind. She sat beside him in a kneeling position. “Hey, Lloyd. How’s everything going so far?”

“Great,” he said honestly. “I haven’t screwed anything up yet.”

She chuckled. “Well, there’s always that.” She held out a red snowflake box which he took. Whatever it was it was pretty heavy. Not as heavy as his grift for her though.

Nya had actually been pretty hard to shop for. For the ninja, their gifts had been obvious. But when he’d got to Nya, the first thing that had popped into his head for her was jewelry. He’d quickly discarded that idea. Him giving Nya jewelry would have been weird. She didn’t wear all that much jewelry anyway. He’d had to do some brainstorming before he settled on a good gift.

The two of them opened their gifts simultaneously. Lloyd was pleasantly surprised to see the kit of art supplies. He didn’t have as much time for art as he used to, but it was still something really enjoyed. It wasn’t something he broadcasted to everyone around him, but his siblings had all seen him doing it at one point or another. 

“Thanks, Nya,” he said, opening the case and cataloguing the different colors of paint, pencils, and markers. This was a quality selection. He’d be able to do a lot with these.

“I know how much you like to draw,” she said. “And thanks for my gifts.” She looked down at the assortment of the newest BORG tools. “I was actually planning on buying these myself, but now I don’t have to.”

Well that would have been awkward. He’d checked to see what tools Nya had before he bought the new ones, but if she had already ordered them it would have been embarrassing. Really embarrassing. And then he would have had to get her a new gift, and ugh- just thinking about it made his pulse start racing.

He suddenly realized Nya was reaching past him. He turned slightly to see that she was picking up Farore. A slight blush burned through his cheeks, but he got rid of it before she faced him again.

“This is so cute. Who gave you this?” she asked, turning the plushie around in her hands.

“Kai,” Lloyd told her quietly.

“Really?” she said, looking inordinately pleased. She put the stuffed dragon back where it had been on the floor and picked up the toolbox again. She tossed a look across the room. “I’ve got to give Cole his gift.” However before she left, she leaned in closer for a moment and whispered, “There’s nothing to worry about. Just enjoy it.” giving a telling glance to where his dad was still seated talking to his uncle about something. Lloyd’s heart gave a nervous jolt. Nya was far too perceptive. But before he could say anything back, she moved off towards where Kai and Cole were arguing about something by the tree.

Lloyd ran his fingers over the soft fabric of the plushie. It wasn’t like he was actually worried or anything. He certainly wasn’t putting it off. It just made sense to save them until last. Because… then he could savor it more. Give it more focus if it was at the end, that’s it. No other reason. It wasn’t like he hadn’t given them things before. They’d been smaller, less formal things, but it was still the same concept. Them being Christmas presents shouldn’t be any different.

For some reason it did feel different. It felt bigger.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t register Zane’s presence until he was right on top of him. The nindroid was holding a white gift bag with silver, black, and gold polka dots. Starting a little, Lloyd hastily grabbed Zane’s gifts from the pile. 

“My apologies,” Zane said, as he sat on the ground. “I did not mean to startle you.”

“What? No,” Lloyd said, waving it off with one hand. “I was just thinking about something.” Why was he so eternally awkward at life? “What are Kai and Cole arguing about?” Diverting the subject usually worked.

Zane glanced back towards said ninja. “I believe they are arguing over the names of Santa’s reindeer. They’ve named eight of them, but can’t agree on the last one.”

“Which one are they missing?” Lloyd asked. He wasn’t confident in his own ability to name all nine reindeer, though he’d at least be close, but Zane must know.

“Cupid,” Zane answered immediately.

“That does seem like a weird one,” Lloyd said thoughtfully. He remembered it went with Comet, which was a name that did make sense, so it gave the song alliteration. Cupid was a strange choice for a reindeer name though. Cupid the Reindeer. Were the names made specifically for the song or was it just a coincidence that they worked out so well?

“Kai thinks it’s Clasher. I am not sure what Cole believes,” Zane explained. Lloyd could ask why Zane hadn’t just told them what the name was, but he already knew the answer.

Lloyd chuckled, then pushed Zane’s gifts forward. There were actually two of them tied together with a ribbon. He technically could have put them in the same box, but he hadn’t wanted to risk them damaging each other.

“Thank you,” Zane said properly. “Here is your gift.”

Lloyd accepted the bag and placed it in his lap. It was fairly heavy and felt solid. He wasn’t sure what Zane would have gotten for him, so he was curious.

They started unwrapping at the same time, but since it was much quicker to take tissue paper out of a bag than unwrap a box, Lloyd saw his gift first.

It was six books from what appeared to be a mystery series. Lloyd was intrigued. He loved comics, but he loved books too. Certain types at least. Mystery novels especially. It was just so satisfying to figure out what was going on, sometimes even before the characters. So much suspense. He’d never read this particular series.

“It’s a very popular series,” Zane explained, pausing in his unwrapping. “Very well written with good characters and plot twists. I thought you’d enjoy it.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd agreed, flipping the first book over so he could read the description on the back. It looked very promising. “Thanks. I’m probably way behind on new releases. I’ve been so busy for so long now, I haven’t been able to keep up with books.” And he also had a lot more freedom now, so he was trying to do and see things he’d never had the chance to before.

While he was reading through the description, Zane finished unwrapping the first gift. “A new pressure cooker! Thank you, Lloyd. I’ve been without one since Cole destroyed my old one.”

Ah yes. The infamous Kitchen Devastation. Lloyd wasn’t privy to all the details leading up to it, but to simplify a few weeks ago Cole had improperly removed the pressure cookers lid. The thing had exploded and through a series of unfortunate events, one thing crashing into another, the whole kitchen had been trashed. It was a miracle no one had been hurt. The kitchen had not been so lucky. Cole had been banned from the kitchen for an undecided length of time.

The second gift was a chessboard. Zane’s old chessboard had been yet another casualty in the pressure cooker disaster. It had been really difficult for Lloyd to pick a new one. There were so many really cool chessboards out there. One that he’d really liked was this one that had the board’s square on different tiers so that they descended as you went towards the middle, like the two sides were facing each other on the top of two hills. Then there had been that wobble chess, which had a concave landscape that stabilized the round bottomed pieces that could freely quiver and wobble. He’d probably spent too long just poking the pieces and watching them wobble around. He didn’t know why it was so fun for him, but it was. It did absolutely nothing to change the gameplay, it was just fun and unusual to look at. And then there were hundreds of variations and themes for the board and piece design. It had been a bit of a chessboard overload, trying to choose just one. In the end though, he’d just gone with a normal one that was of higher quality than Zane’s old one. It was more portable, and he knew Zane would appreciate the simpler design. Maybe for next Christmas, if this new board survived that long, he could get Zane one of the crazier boards.

It was a good decision judging from how much Zane seemed to like it. “Thank you, Lloyd! I have not been able to play since my board was smashed. And such fine quality. Perhaps we can play a round tomorrow.”

“I’m glad you like it. And sure I’ll play.” Lloyd didn’t brag about it much, but it was a matter of great pride that he was the only one of the ninja to ever beat Zane at chess. And it wasn’t a onetime thing either. Zane still won more often, but Lloyd was able to win fairly consistently at the strategic game. He still remembered how ecstatic he’d been when he’d beat Zane for the first time.

They fell into a chat about chess and strategies for a time, Lloyd wasn’t sure how long, but eventually they moved on and Zane went to give Jay his gift while Lloyd moved on to his uncle.

It is hard to express the difficulty that was getting a gift for a man who had renounced most worldly possessions. And it wasn’t like Lloyd could just not give him a gift, no he’d had to get him something. Tea had been about the only thing he could come up with. Tea and family. Which might not be so bad, if he didn’t also have to compete with seven other people also giving him gifts. There was bound to be a serious gift overlap. Lloyd had wanted to get him something special, but any gift he came up with was either something one of the others would get him or something Lloyd had already given him. He hadn’t had a lot of options.

Admitting defeat had been hard and somewhat humiliating, but he’d just gotten him a gift card for that tea shop he was always going to. Shameful, he knew, but what was he supposed to do? He also drew him a picture of the two of them together, but it felt like a desperate attempt to prop up a lame gift.

Surprisingly, his uncle actually seemed very touched by the drawing. Lloyd was a little confused, it was just a black and white pencil sketch of the two of them having tea together. Sure, it was better than most could do, but it didn’t strike Lloyd as anything particularly special. But, hey, if he liked it, Lloyd sure wasn’t going to complain.

Unlike his lackluster gift, the sword his uncle gave him was cool. Lloyd knew how to use most weapons, but swords were his weapon of choice. 

Lloyd unsheathed the sword and swung it around a little, getting a feel for its weight. It felt good. His lips crooked into a slight grin as he brought the blade closer to his face, admiring the smooth, reflective surface. The grip had a gold diamond pattern on it, but it was a humble design overall.

“Thanks, Uncle,” Lloyd said, as he placed the sword back in its hilt.

Wu smiled at him fondly. “I used to train with that sword when I was a boy. I’ve kept it all this time, but it does no good gathering dust. I’m sure you’ll put it to good use.” For a moment, Lloyd could swear there was a hint of sadness in his uncle’s eyes, but it was gone so quickly Lloyd wasn’t sure if he’d just imagined it.

He’d probably just imagined it.

Lloyd studied the sword with a mingling feeling of awe. To think his uncle had actually kept the sword that long. Not that he was old- ok, yes, he was old, but there was nothing wrong with that. “I’ll take good care of it,” he promised, tightening his grip on the sword a little.

Wu placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know you will, Lloyd.”

Well there was no putting it off now. Not that he had been. Much.

_Ok, Lloyd, just do it. It should come naturally. You’re just playing it up in your head._ Why was he so bad at this?

His mom was over by the tree having just finished a conversation with Jay’s mother. He took a deep breath, grabbing her gift, a rather small but elegantly wrapped box, from his now depleted pile. Only his dad’s was left now, so it wasn’t even a pile anymore. He hated that he was nervous. He shouldn’t be nervous. It was just giving his parents gifts for a holiday.

As he made his way over to her, the distance didn’t seem to match up to what he knew it was. It felt longer, and he was acutely aware of everything happening around him. No one was paying any attention to him because why would they, he was just crossing the room. It was just…

What if his gift wasn’t good enough?

Too late to turn back now.

“Hey, Mom,” he greeted, coming to a stop next to her. She looked nice. Her hair was in its usual braid, but her outfit was more festive. Nothing crazy like what the younger among them were wearing, but a pretty green shirt and tan pants. After having so many outlandish shirts pushed in front of him, seeing something simpler was kind of refreshing. 

“Lloyd.” She wrapped him in a hug that caught him a bit off guard, but he relaxed into it. It didn’t last long though as his mom pulled back. “Did you get any good gifts yet?”

“They were all good gifts,” Lloyd told her.

She nodded. “That’s good. I’m glad you’ve been enjoying yourself.” The warmth in her eyes chased away his nerves.

“Oh, yeah, it’s been a blast,” he said earnestly.

His excitement fell flat on its face as he watched his mom’s face crumple a little. “I’m sorry this is your first Christmas with your family. This should have been one of many.”

In a flash Lloyd went into comfort mode. “Pfft,” he said carelessly, leaning forward a little, “we have plenty of Christmases to look forward to. No reason to get all sad about it.” He smiled brightly. “We wouldn’t have had the whole family anyway.” He held out his gift. “Now how about you open my gift so we can get to you giving me mine?”

Her laugh was instant relief to Lloyd’s flustered mind. She took the gift and led Lloyd to sit on the closest couch. As her fingers touched the ribbon Lloyd suddenly remembered that he was nervous about this part. His heart thudded in his chest as the paper fell away.

“Oh, Lloyd, it’s lovely,” she exclaimed, lifting the necklace from its place. The round silver pendant reflected the lights from the tree. It was on a simple silver chain and in the center of the pendant was a dragon, wings extended. There were smaller etchings around it, but the dragon was the most prominent feature.

“Oh, um, good,” Lloyd stammered. “It also-“ But she figured it out before he could finish.

“Lloyd,” she said softly. The pendant was now open, revealing the space that lay inside. The photo showed the three of them, himself, her, and his dad. It was the family photo they’d taken after his cast had finally come off. They were all smiling.

He looked at the photo instead of his mom’s face. “I thought maybe you could wear it when you have to go do your archeological stuff,” he explained timidly.

His eyes being on the locket instead of his mother, he didn’t fully see the hug coming until it hit him. He returned it, buying his head in her shoulder.

Her voice was wet as she said, “It’s wonderful, son, thank you. I’ll treasure it forever.”

Lloyd closed his eyes and enjoyed the moment.

When they drew apart again, his mother was holding a light green gift box. She must have had it near the side of the couch. Lloyd stared at it for a second. His parents were going to give him gifts. He’d been so worried about his own gifts he hadn’t even thought about what they might give him. He had no idea what to expect.

He took the box from her carefully. While he unwrapped it, she put on the necklace.

It was a book. A leather-bound book that he couldn’t read. It was all written it that squiggly old writing that he saw on a lot of her old books. His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion because what was he supposed to do with this? He looked up at her, curious.

“It’s a history book that depicts some ancient legends,” she explained, but she seemed almost nervous. “It has some of the easier script. I thought maybe I could teach you how to read it.”

She wanted to teach him how to read ancient languages? He looked back down at the cryptic scribbles. That would be awesome, he had to admit. Plus, it would give him quality time with his mom and he might even be able to help her with her work if he got good at it. The only thing that troubled him was what if he wasn’t good at it? What if that wasn’t a skill he’d inherited, and it was too hard so he looked like an idiot in front of his mom? She’d probably be crushed if he wasn’t able to learn, might even blame herself for being a bad teacher.

But you never know if you don’t try. And even if he never became an expert, Lloyd was sure he’d at least learn something. Not to mention he was already fluent in Ipathi, a language from the Prince Donegan series. It was simpler than whatever this language was, but it was something, so maybe he wouldn’t suck at it.

“Cool,” he said, opening the book and leafing through the pages. It had pictures, thank goodness, that always helped. “I kinda always wanted to learn how to read this stuff.”

“Why didn’t you ask, then?” his mom asked, her voice something between surprised and worried.

Lloyd shrugged. “It never really came up and I was usually doing something else. I guess I just never thought to ask.”

“Well, I’d be happy to teach you,” she said eagerly, “It’s really a lot of fun to learn. And when you start getting it, it’s an amazing feeling.”

“Oh, what was the first book you translated?”

Their conversation went on for a while. Lloyd found it all fascinating. Although really, his mom could have talked about how she once watched paint dry as a kid and he would still find it interesting because she was saying it. Maybe the thrill of having his parents around would fade eventually, but he was nowhere near that time.

All the conversations around the room had grown quieter by the time they were done. The energy was beginning to die down now that it was so late. Or maybe it was early. Lloyd had no idea what time it was at this point.

As his mom drew away, Lloyd’s eyes shifted to the single gift left on his nonexistent pile. A pang of worry shivered through him. His dad wouldn’t be upset that he’d given him his gift last would he? Surely he’d know it wasn’t because of any will on Lloyd’s part. He would-

Wait, where did he go?!

His dad was no longer in the room. Why wasn’t he here, where would he have gone?! Worry spiked into panic as his eyes darted frantically around the room, searching for any clues to where his dad might have gone. He desperately tried to recall what had been happening around him during the talk he’d had with his mom, but he kept coming up blank. He hadn’t noticed his dad moving, much less leaving entirely. He hadn’t been paying attention. There was no way he would have gone to bed without Lloyd giving him his gift. It was such a stupid theory that Lloyd didn’t even entertain it. Another scan of the room showed that Wu wasn’t there either. That observation alleviated his panic by some small amount. They’d probably just ducked out to talk about brothery stuff and they’d be back soon. No need to panic. Everyone else was here, no one had turned in for the night, it wasn’t that late yet.

Lloyd sucked in a deep breath to even out his breathing which had become unnaturally rapid for a few seconds there. Ok, he felt better now. He just had to grab his gift and wait for them to return.

He put the book along with his other gifts, organizing them into a neater pile. Then he threw away the colorful paper strewn around where he had been sitting. His space now tidied up, he grabbed his dad’s gift, clutching it close to his side as he anxiously waited for his father to come back.

Every minute he didn’t enter the room increased Lloyd’s anxiety. This was his punishment for being a coward and waiting to give his dad his gift last. A just punishment from the universe. He didn’t dare risk going to look for him for fear of them missing each other. And what kind of a jerk move would it be to go- hey, I know I saved you for last, but I got sick of waiting for you, so I went to find you myself. He put thirty minutes as his max though. Any longer and he’d go search for him. He could just ask Kai to- no, wait, Lloyd didn’t have his phone on him right now so he couldn’t do that.

It felt like forever, and he got into a few short conversations with the ninja during that time, but it hadn’t been thirty minutes.

The wave of relief that hit him when his dad and uncle walked through the side door that led to the kitchen was almost painful. It took Lloyd an immense amount of self-control to not instantly rush over to him. He watched out of the corner of his eye as his dad looked around the room. For a moment, his gaze landed on Lloyd turning nervous before moving on.

As soon as he sat down on the couch, Lloyd went over, gift in hand.

“Hey, Dad!” he said brightly, plopping into the spot next to him. He really hoped he wasn’t upset.

“Lloyd,” he greeted, a soft warmth in his eyes and voice. “Having fun?”

Lloyd nodded energetically, praying his nerves weren’t showing. “Oh, yeah, today’s been great! I’m kinda sad it’s almost over.”

His dad smiled. “Oh, it’s probably going to feel like Christmas for a while yet. These decorations aren’t going anywhere soon and you and your friends made enough cookies to last us until next year’s Christmas.”

Lloyd shrugged good-naturally. “What can I say? We go all out.” He hadn’t even thought about taking down the decorations. That was going to be so depressing. But Christmas wouldn’t be special if it lasted all year.

“You certainly do.” He eyed Lloyd’s sweater, indicating judgement. Lloyd couldn’t let him get away with that.

“You’re just jealous you don’t have a stylish and seasonally appropriate sweater,” Lloyd quipped.

“Honestly, yours isn’t that bad,” his dad admitted. “Kai’s is far more surprising.”

Lloyd snorted, giving a stealthy glance over in Kai’s direction. It was a hilariously over the top, and the fact that Kai was the one wearing it made it even better. “Yeah, it’s great,” he chuckled.

The pause in the conversation didn’t go unnoticed. Lloyd knew now would be a good time to bring up gifts, but-

His thoughts screeched to a halt as a box landed in his lap. “Merry Christmas, son.” 

It took him a moment to reorganize his thoughts, so he just looked down at the rectangular black gift box with gold spots in his hands. His hesitation only lasted for a second though, and in the next he was carefully unwrapping the gift.

He hadn’t been expecting anything, but the gift still surprised him.

The hoodie was soft and his favorite shade of forest green. Some people might be disappointed when they got clothes as gifts, but this was something completely different. Now it wasn’t like Lloyd didn’t own any other green hoodies, he had a couple in his drawers upstairs. It was the meaning behind the gift that made it so special.

Lloyd still vividly remembered the day the skeletons had given him his skeleton hoodie. His dad had been unable to give to give it to him himself due to his banishment, but it had still meant the world to Lloyd. It had given him hope. Even if his dad hadn’t been able to give it to him in person, it was proof that he cared. That he thought about him. That he would be there with him if he could. Lloyd had worn that sweater more than any article of clothing he’d ever owned. It had been a few sizes too big for him when he’d first received it, giving room for him to grow, but it hadn’t stopped him from wearing it and by the time he’d met the ninja it had been a perfect fit. He still had it, but it didn’t fit anymore. He couldn’t wear it.

But now he had a new hoodie, one given to him in person on Christmas day by his no longer evil dad. One that he could wear and the people around him wouldn’t know how special it was, but Lloyd would know. Lloyd couldn’t think of anything he could have wanted more.

He looked up and was startled to see such open apprehension in his father’s eyes. As if he thought Lloyd wouldn’t like it or something crazy like that.

Lloyd’s face split into a grin and he threw his arms around his dad into a hug. “I love it,” he whispered passionately. 

His dad wasted no time in reciprocating the hug, a warm, strong embrace. “Good.” He squeezed the hug a fraction tighter. “I’m glad.” It felt good and that needy part of Lloyd that was always there rejoiced at the touch.

When the hug ended, Lloyd didn’t move back, choosing instead to stay cuddled against his dad. His dad made no move to push him away, instead pulling him almost protectively closer. For a second, Lloyd ached because he’d _missed_ all this in his childhood. Then fingers started carding through his hair and Lloyd relaxed at the contact.

Lloyd let this go on for a few minutes (probably), not wanting to interrupt the content feeling that was becoming more and more frequent the farther he got from his childhood. But he had to get to the goal of why he’d come over here in the first place eventually. “Here’s my gift,” Lloyd said, reaching his arm out to grab the box before handing it over to his dad.

Because of his position, Lloyd didn’t immediately see his dad’s reaction to his gift. He had to twist his head up a little to see the sad happy look on his face. Well, it wasn’t really sad, but his eyes were wet.

“I love it,” he said, turning the proudly framed photo a little so he could study it better. A hint of surprise entered his voice when he asked, “Did you make the frame yourself?”

Lloyd nodded, looking down at the frame as well. He’d used the same photo as he had for his mother’s locket, though this was a much larger version. The three golden dragons that made up the frame of the photo had been carved from wood then painted. Lloyd hadn’t wanted to just give him something he’d bought from the store, so he’d made the frame himself. It wasn’t the most intricate or fancy carving he’d ever seen, but he hadn’t really wanted it to be fancy. He hadn’t wanted it to seem garish and out of place inside a home, so the simpler, but still unique look was exactly what he’d been going for.

“Impressive,” his dad complimented, a look of pride in his eyes, “You’re quite the artist.”

“Thanks,” Lloyd said, “I wanted to make it more special.”

A kiss was pressed to the top of his head. “It’s perfect.”

They didn’t talk anymore after that. It was late and the rhythmic stroking of his hair only added to his drowsiness. He didn’t fall asleep right away though. He had a little while to think back on everything that had happened the past few weeks. It hadn’t been perfect, but that was more Lloyd’s fault than anyone else’s. After he’d stopped being stupid, it had been almost as close to perfect as one could get. 

And the best part was they had many, many Christmases to come. Next year Lloyd wouldn’t mess things up with his worrying and he’d be experienced. It would be even better. The festivities weren’t the most important thing though. What mattered was having everyone there to celebrate together and there were countless Christmases in the future to look forward to celebrating with everyone in his family.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so whatever way I look at it, Lloyd only got 1 Christmas tops with his whole family. After that there is always at least one person missing or dead. Maybe once season 9 comes that will change, but right now Lloyd only got 1 Christmas with every member of his family being there. It’s a sad thing to think about.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading my story. I hope you all enjoyed it. Please tell me what you think of it. I do plan to write more Ninjago fanfiction like this in the future because there isn’t very much of this family oriented Ninjago fanfiction which is kinda sad and weird to me. I’m really surprised there isn’t more like this. I don’t know when they will come out, but I’ll try to have them mostly written before I post them so they’re aren’t these long waits like there was with this story.
> 
> P.S. Kudos to whoever knows why Lloyd’s dragon is named Farore.

**Author's Note:**

> I have this whole story planed out. I know exactly what will happen in each chapter. I just have to write it. If you're wondering how Lloyd could possibly know so little about Christmas, don't worry, it's explained more in later chapters.


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